'kay, right, so turns out Lily isn't going home.
Today ended up being pretty decent, besides the sunburn I got all across my shoulders and face. This comes of going to a student-olympics thing when you're part of a dorm whose official color is red. Nobody informed me of this while I was, say, packing, so I had the shirt colors of all the other residence halls, but not my own. So I borrowed Lily's red tank top, which fit fine, looked rather good, but which, you know, exposed my Very White Skin to the sun. And now it's very red. And painful. 'Cause nobody on my floor that I know has any creme containing aloe, including myself.
Went to play tryouts shortly thereafter with Amy and Yumi...except that the two of them are shy, and they didn't end up trying out, they just sat there and watched everyone else. I, the fearless leader *g*, tried out second of everyone, directly after this kid John...
...who I ended up talking to for a long time at the honors reception tonight. (I had the best chocolate raspberry fudge ever. Oh my word.) We talked about plays--he said my tryout had been good, I said his had, we got talking about How to Succeed in Business and Arsenic and Old Lace, I heard a bit about his girlfriend...he's really really great, and unlike all my other friends so far...we have classes together! Several classes!
Also met my honors "big brother", Ryan. That was cool. We talked about randomness, too.
...I'm getting a lot of mileage out of the microbiology-coloring-book story, especially the part about my buying it used. *g* 'Cause I did. It hasn't been colored in. But it's used. Guess they didn't like the class.
Got myself locked out of my room (woo!), but yay for RAs with master keys.
So am here, and classes start tomorrow, so yeah.
-Laurel
8.31.2003
'kay, starting with night before last, working my way to today.
Went to the dance, hung out with Evan and Lily for a while, trying(/failing) to dance to the rap-stuff they had going, and was really starting to get bored when I found Amy and Yumi (had just met them that morning, remember?), looking shy, especially Yumi, so I went over to them and starting semi-dancing. They finally played some decent music--"Footloose" and "Shook Me All Night Long", "I'm a Believer" (Smash Mouth version, though) and "Intergalactic Planetary", the latter of which has been stuck in my head on and off ever since, though all I know is the chorus.
Around 11, the three of us left and Yumi showed us the observatory, where all the astronomy-stuff is. It was too cloudy and too late, so it was closed, and we decided to walk back to my dorm. Yumi lives just down the hall, and Amy's in another res-hall entirely, but neither had seen Lily's and my room, so I showed them. Lily was still at the dance and stuff, so the three of us hung round and looked at pictures and talked, and then we went to Yumi's room and did the same, and it was very nice. They're prolly the best friends, outside of Lily, that I've got around here.
Yesterday my mom and dad came, and we got some food and some decorations and put down a carpet patch, and oh wow, our room looks so much better. Was massively tired after that, so I slept 'til 6:30, then went to a mural-painting-type thing at 7, sat with Lily and Evan and some of their friends and helped paint this canvas-type thing that's going to be saved 'til our senior year. I tried making a starry night, like the one on the fabric we hung from our divider yesterday, but it ended up looking like a Fisher-Price drum, my brush was too big to make small stars. And all my blue and turquoise paints bled, so did everybody's. Oh, well.
Signed up for some extracurriculars later that night, came back and talked online, then went out and heard this comedian-guy whose name I've forgotten; he was very fun, very good. Came back, watched a scrap of Two Towers down with Evan and his friends, but I've been trying and trying to avoid that, 'cause I really don't think I have the patience to see all three hours of that movie again, and I didn't stay long, 'cause I'd promised to be back online, and Evan knew that, so I went.
Stayed up 'til four, writing e-mail and watching Strong Bad's e-mail with Lily, and we went to bed. Woke up of my own accord at 9:40, thinking my alarm was going off--and five minutes thereafter, our phone rang. This impressed us, inasmuch as we've never gotten a call on it, but it turned out to be Cara, Lily's best friend (or one of them, anyway), whose dad had died the night before.
So we've been walking and getting hold of people and preparing for Lily to go home to see her. And there're still things to be done today: Student Olympics (which, oh gracious, we're so not in the mood for), play tryouts, honor student reception...
...and for the next day or two, I'll be in my dorm alone, online a lot, 'cause Lily'll be gone. Which is okay. So if you don't find me online today, just wait a while, I'll be on a lot tonight. Classes start tomorrow, but I'll be on as much as I can.
It's so strange, every time someone dies, you kind of wonder what to do, how to take it. Every time, you think you've thought it all through, established a pattern, and then the next one takes you back to square one.
All phileo. Cheerio.
-Laurel
Went to the dance, hung out with Evan and Lily for a while, trying(/failing) to dance to the rap-stuff they had going, and was really starting to get bored when I found Amy and Yumi (had just met them that morning, remember?), looking shy, especially Yumi, so I went over to them and starting semi-dancing. They finally played some decent music--"Footloose" and "Shook Me All Night Long", "I'm a Believer" (Smash Mouth version, though) and "Intergalactic Planetary", the latter of which has been stuck in my head on and off ever since, though all I know is the chorus.
Around 11, the three of us left and Yumi showed us the observatory, where all the astronomy-stuff is. It was too cloudy and too late, so it was closed, and we decided to walk back to my dorm. Yumi lives just down the hall, and Amy's in another res-hall entirely, but neither had seen Lily's and my room, so I showed them. Lily was still at the dance and stuff, so the three of us hung round and looked at pictures and talked, and then we went to Yumi's room and did the same, and it was very nice. They're prolly the best friends, outside of Lily, that I've got around here.
Yesterday my mom and dad came, and we got some food and some decorations and put down a carpet patch, and oh wow, our room looks so much better. Was massively tired after that, so I slept 'til 6:30, then went to a mural-painting-type thing at 7, sat with Lily and Evan and some of their friends and helped paint this canvas-type thing that's going to be saved 'til our senior year. I tried making a starry night, like the one on the fabric we hung from our divider yesterday, but it ended up looking like a Fisher-Price drum, my brush was too big to make small stars. And all my blue and turquoise paints bled, so did everybody's. Oh, well.
Signed up for some extracurriculars later that night, came back and talked online, then went out and heard this comedian-guy whose name I've forgotten; he was very fun, very good. Came back, watched a scrap of Two Towers down with Evan and his friends, but I've been trying and trying to avoid that, 'cause I really don't think I have the patience to see all three hours of that movie again, and I didn't stay long, 'cause I'd promised to be back online, and Evan knew that, so I went.
Stayed up 'til four, writing e-mail and watching Strong Bad's e-mail with Lily, and we went to bed. Woke up of my own accord at 9:40, thinking my alarm was going off--and five minutes thereafter, our phone rang. This impressed us, inasmuch as we've never gotten a call on it, but it turned out to be Cara, Lily's best friend (or one of them, anyway), whose dad had died the night before.
So we've been walking and getting hold of people and preparing for Lily to go home to see her. And there're still things to be done today: Student Olympics (which, oh gracious, we're so not in the mood for), play tryouts, honor student reception...
...and for the next day or two, I'll be in my dorm alone, online a lot, 'cause Lily'll be gone. Which is okay. So if you don't find me online today, just wait a while, I'll be on a lot tonight. Classes start tomorrow, but I'll be on as much as I can.
It's so strange, every time someone dies, you kind of wonder what to do, how to take it. Every time, you think you've thought it all through, established a pattern, and then the next one takes you back to square one.
All phileo. Cheerio.
-Laurel
8.30.2003
Mm. All these hills and stairs and sleep deprivations're really taking it out of me.
Last night was pretty cool all in all, and the dance wasn't bad, either. More on all that later, honest, but right now I've got a hall-meeting-thing and then I'm going to sleep.
...'specially since I've got a blanket now. *g*
-Laurel
Last night was pretty cool all in all, and the dance wasn't bad, either. More on all that later, honest, but right now I've got a hall-meeting-thing and then I'm going to sleep.
...'specially since I've got a blanket now. *g*
-Laurel
8.29.2003
Today has been less weird, though some parts of it were mildly random.
Morning routine went easier, got in and out of the shower and bathroom better. ...'course, it helped that I had two hours to get to my first thing, not just one like yesterday. ...Turns out there's an electrical outlet in the bathroom after all, it's just off in an alcove, so that's where I'll be drying my hair every morning, whee.
Finally met with my advisor, who--well, I'm sure she's decent, but sometimes I get the feeling (and come to think of it, I got that feeling just a touch when I visited for accepted students' weekend, too) that she's not always entirely there, like Miss O. who Daf and Bethie had for senior English. (Bad thing is, at least Miss O's young and therefore has some measure of hope; this'n's middle-aged...) But the upside of this is that she gave me the academic equivalent of a gift certificate: signed my Course Add form (got cut out of Am-Lit 'cause the prof took a job elsewhere) before I'd written anything on it and told me I could decide what I wanted to take, she'd give advice if I wanted it, but otherwise the choice was entirely mine. So, finding that I couldn't get into Psych Methods/Statistics (unresolvable schedule conflict), I ended up in Spanish 201. ::grins:: I'm really rather impressed with myself: I tested out of the Spanish requirement yesterday morning, scoring an 80 of 100 on the test (test-out level was 61) even though I was hungry, distracted, and running on 4 1/2 hours of sleep. (No, no ego issue, why d'you ask? *g*) So technically I don't have to take a language at all, but as I'm considering Spanish as a minor (I may be double-minoring in Spanish and psych before this's over), I figured I'd just skip into advanced.
...Almost wish I hadn't, though, inasmuch as the supplies for that class ran me $160. Oh, and honors seminar? Required six paperback books. Six. ...This's what I get for taking a seminar run by an English professor. But I met her today, and she seems very cool, very intelligent. And she was actually enthusiastic about the idea of my taking an honors seminar on cooking-in-literature when I cannot, to be technical about it, cook. So she appears to want to stretch horizons, and I'm not averse to the idea (just to the $80 worth of books, right?).
Randomness of the Day Award goes to my supplies for Bio 120, freshman lab-science class in microbes: we do not have a textbook, we have a coloring book. I was required to purchase for this class the coloring book, a box of colored pencils, and a set of safety goggles. ...In case we poke ourselves with the pencils, I suppose...*g*
Finally got my ID, and I have to say, it may be the first decent ID picture ever taken of me, though you won't be seeing me on magazine covers anytime soon. Celebrated by using it to buy myself a bottle of water, 'cause I have fifty dollars' worth of outside-dining-hall food-buying credit per semester. Which's going to last me about two weeks, if this heat and humidity keep up. ::grins a bit:: That's what the water was for. My mom's coming tomorrow with food and the other stuff I forgot, as I think I said.
...Actually, it started to rain while we were in hall meeting (just got back a bit ago; was boring as all get out, but sadly necessary), so maybe it'll be less humid.
Walked back from book-buying, incidentally, with Yumi (say it you-me) down the hall, student from Japan. I'd met her at lunch 'cause I'd been hanging out with fellow-English-major Amy all day (we have the same advisor, met this morning that way) and they knew each other, but Yumi's only several doors down, and Amy's in an entirely different residence hall, pretty much across campus. Yumi offered to carry one of my bags of stuff (and I had three) in a sort of exchange for borrowing my laundry detergent, since she'd forgotten hers. This sounded good to me (actually, I had to restrict her to one, else I think she'dve tried to carry them all), and we talked all the way up the hill and the stairs.
Speaking of the stairs, yeah, that was today's moment of cultural interchange, 'cause I ended up explaining to Yumi what claustrophobia was and why this meant that, with no extra stair-climbing work on her part intended, I was not about to use the elevator. Also explained what it was not, inasmuch as she then asked me, perfectly validly, if my room made me nervous because it was small and enclosed. ::laughs:: Actually, it's no smaller than my room at home, and probably slightly bigger, but I did explain what, for me, constituted small enclosed spaces.
So today's new friends were Amy and Yumi, and I also talked quite a bit with Evan, roommate of Chris. ...Truth be told, I like Evan rather better of the two. He's not as flashy-suave-sophisticate, much more down to earth, and has a girlfriend who, as it turns out, may be sleeping on our floor in a weekend or two, as she's coming to visit.
::blinks:: Oh dear. I'd better find out when, 'cause next weekend Lily's visiting home, and I may be, too.
Anyway, dinner now, dance later ::wrinkles nose::, 'cause I got roped into that by my "core group" from the freshman activity the first night (kind of a Link Crew Lite). So depending on how early I can get out, or whether the unthinkable happens and I enjoy myself at this music-blaring dance-thing, I may or may not be back tonight for AIM-stuff. All apologies if I don't.
Cheerio!
-Laurel
Morning routine went easier, got in and out of the shower and bathroom better. ...'course, it helped that I had two hours to get to my first thing, not just one like yesterday. ...Turns out there's an electrical outlet in the bathroom after all, it's just off in an alcove, so that's where I'll be drying my hair every morning, whee.
Finally met with my advisor, who--well, I'm sure she's decent, but sometimes I get the feeling (and come to think of it, I got that feeling just a touch when I visited for accepted students' weekend, too) that she's not always entirely there, like Miss O. who Daf and Bethie had for senior English. (Bad thing is, at least Miss O's young and therefore has some measure of hope; this'n's middle-aged...) But the upside of this is that she gave me the academic equivalent of a gift certificate: signed my Course Add form (got cut out of Am-Lit 'cause the prof took a job elsewhere) before I'd written anything on it and told me I could decide what I wanted to take, she'd give advice if I wanted it, but otherwise the choice was entirely mine. So, finding that I couldn't get into Psych Methods/Statistics (unresolvable schedule conflict), I ended up in Spanish 201. ::grins:: I'm really rather impressed with myself: I tested out of the Spanish requirement yesterday morning, scoring an 80 of 100 on the test (test-out level was 61) even though I was hungry, distracted, and running on 4 1/2 hours of sleep. (No, no ego issue, why d'you ask? *g*) So technically I don't have to take a language at all, but as I'm considering Spanish as a minor (I may be double-minoring in Spanish and psych before this's over), I figured I'd just skip into advanced.
...Almost wish I hadn't, though, inasmuch as the supplies for that class ran me $160. Oh, and honors seminar? Required six paperback books. Six. ...This's what I get for taking a seminar run by an English professor. But I met her today, and she seems very cool, very intelligent. And she was actually enthusiastic about the idea of my taking an honors seminar on cooking-in-literature when I cannot, to be technical about it, cook. So she appears to want to stretch horizons, and I'm not averse to the idea (just to the $80 worth of books, right?).
Randomness of the Day Award goes to my supplies for Bio 120, freshman lab-science class in microbes: we do not have a textbook, we have a coloring book. I was required to purchase for this class the coloring book, a box of colored pencils, and a set of safety goggles. ...In case we poke ourselves with the pencils, I suppose...*g*
Finally got my ID, and I have to say, it may be the first decent ID picture ever taken of me, though you won't be seeing me on magazine covers anytime soon. Celebrated by using it to buy myself a bottle of water, 'cause I have fifty dollars' worth of outside-dining-hall food-buying credit per semester. Which's going to last me about two weeks, if this heat and humidity keep up. ::grins a bit:: That's what the water was for. My mom's coming tomorrow with food and the other stuff I forgot, as I think I said.
...Actually, it started to rain while we were in hall meeting (just got back a bit ago; was boring as all get out, but sadly necessary), so maybe it'll be less humid.
Walked back from book-buying, incidentally, with Yumi (say it you-me) down the hall, student from Japan. I'd met her at lunch 'cause I'd been hanging out with fellow-English-major Amy all day (we have the same advisor, met this morning that way) and they knew each other, but Yumi's only several doors down, and Amy's in an entirely different residence hall, pretty much across campus. Yumi offered to carry one of my bags of stuff (and I had three) in a sort of exchange for borrowing my laundry detergent, since she'd forgotten hers. This sounded good to me (actually, I had to restrict her to one, else I think she'dve tried to carry them all), and we talked all the way up the hill and the stairs.
Speaking of the stairs, yeah, that was today's moment of cultural interchange, 'cause I ended up explaining to Yumi what claustrophobia was and why this meant that, with no extra stair-climbing work on her part intended, I was not about to use the elevator. Also explained what it was not, inasmuch as she then asked me, perfectly validly, if my room made me nervous because it was small and enclosed. ::laughs:: Actually, it's no smaller than my room at home, and probably slightly bigger, but I did explain what, for me, constituted small enclosed spaces.
So today's new friends were Amy and Yumi, and I also talked quite a bit with Evan, roommate of Chris. ...Truth be told, I like Evan rather better of the two. He's not as flashy-suave-sophisticate, much more down to earth, and has a girlfriend who, as it turns out, may be sleeping on our floor in a weekend or two, as she's coming to visit.
::blinks:: Oh dear. I'd better find out when, 'cause next weekend Lily's visiting home, and I may be, too.
Anyway, dinner now, dance later ::wrinkles nose::, 'cause I got roped into that by my "core group" from the freshman activity the first night (kind of a Link Crew Lite). So depending on how early I can get out, or whether the unthinkable happens and I enjoy myself at this music-blaring dance-thing, I may or may not be back tonight for AIM-stuff. All apologies if I don't.
Cheerio!
-Laurel
Went out around ten to find Mars, ended up way on top of the hills above the one parking lot (and there're a lot of hills here, and they're none too easy on the calves, either), in a paved area, in a ring of trees. Wasn't the best spot ever, but I could see things better than on campus. I think I saw Mars, 'cause I think it was in the right place in the sky, and it was reddish and kinda flickery, but I could've been seeing Beateljuce for all I know (you know, that one red star that's not spelled like Beetlejuice).
Tomorrow'll be less random and weird.
-Laurel
Tomorrow'll be less random and weird.
-Laurel
8.28.2003
'kay, change of plans: I didn't actually go out star-gazing, since it wasn't dark enough yet. Will try again in about ten minutes. Instead I walked out of the college and into the town (yes, alone; but yes, under lights and on sidewalks all the way), went to the coffee shop, and bought myself an Italian soda, roughly on par with the ones back home (it's all the same stuff, just different names for the cafes).
Was a long walk, and a little on the parky side, plus my skin is being "particularly sensitive to cold", which means that the chill of the soda made my hands and fingers itch like all get out, and I think they swelled up a bit, too.
...I don't envy my mom, losing a child figuratively in me and about to lose a brother literally in my Uncle Tom, whom they gave two weeks. ...Last Thanksgiving he was up and making the pies.
::flicker:: but yeah.
I miss everybody.
-Laurel
Was a long walk, and a little on the parky side, plus my skin is being "particularly sensitive to cold", which means that the chill of the soda made my hands and fingers itch like all get out, and I think they swelled up a bit, too.
...I don't envy my mom, losing a child figuratively in me and about to lose a brother literally in my Uncle Tom, whom they gave two weeks. ...Last Thanksgiving he was up and making the pies.
::flicker:: but yeah.
I miss everybody.
-Laurel
Right, Part II.
Last night was general advisory-and-freshman-party-thing-ness, met a whole lot of people but can't remember 95% of the names. ...Make that 98%. Anyway, yeah, that was 'til 10:30ish, got back and stayed online for a long long time, minus five minutes or so that I was down a floor watching Lily kick this guy Chris's butt at Tekken.
Lily made me kinda nervous by saying Chris was asking about me, but as it turns out, he's the dorm social animal, the guy going to the movies twice tonight, each with two sets of girls. (I'm not going. Matrix isn't quite my thing.) Since I spent much of my middle-school-to-high-school career being, well, ignored by popular members of the male gender, having attention paid to me by one has been rather strange. Am glad, all in all, that he does this to everybody.
So was online 'til about 2:30, which I'm really sorry Lily had to be there for, inasmuch as I pound computer keys, and at about 45 words per minute, and that can't have been good for her attempts to sleep. Not that it wasn't a thoroughly valid cause to be online, because it was, and not for just about anything on earth would I have missed it, but--::grins::--it didn't do much for my existing sleep deprivation. And was a little cold, inasmuch as I, dork that I am, forgot my blanket (being brought Saturday, along with food, which I also forgot, and my larger pillow, which I also forgot).
So this morning was, as I've told 'Nanda, all like, placement test at 8:30 am whaaaaat? 'Cause I had to test for Spanish, see where I was. So used the showers and found out several things: 1) anything in the shower stall, no matter how far off to the side, will get wet; 2) when my shampoo was named "strawberries and cream", they weren't kidding: scent is just like melted CreamSavers; and 3) if you sneeze in the shower, it makes a really loud echo. *g* Trying to dry my hair was fun, too, inasmuch as the deficiency of outlets in our room means that I cannot get close enough with my dryer to the mirror to see what I'm doing. Tried to take said dryer to the bathroom outlets, like I did when I stayed with 'Nanda, only to discover that our bathroom doesn't have outlets (though it does have thoroughly-divided shower stalls, excepting the aqueduct-things at the back to take the water to the community drain, so that's I suppose a form of trade-off).
And okay, yeah, we got lost trying to find the building. This is going to be a recurring theme, this being lost, we can tell, 'cause later on we had the same problem, mostly because the building in question didn't show up on the map (what is it with faulty college campus maps, anyway?). But eventually we walked in with several other people, several minutes late, and were given the test. It wasn't terrible, but also wasn't as easy as I expected. Should be interesting to see how I did. A 61 or higher'll test me out of the requirement, but as I'm considering minoring in Spanish (along with psych), doing so probably wouldn't be so bright.
...'course, I think my community-college credit should skip me out of the courses even if my test grades don't, so probably all I did by taking the test was mess with my advisor's head. ::shrugs::
Went after that to a freshman sessiony-thing on the history of the college, but by that time I was massively tired and stuff, so after lunch (soup and salad) Lily and I went back to the dorm and crashed, missing the other two sessions completely (lucky they weren't mandatory; all we missed out on was a chance at a free DVD of some sort). Got up in time for model-class, or whatever randomness it was, but the theater professor ran our group (goes by Becky), and she's very cool.
Went to a barbecue-thing after that that they were putting on; the two of us sat with Tanya and Megan and Rachel, all of whom live down the hall, all of whom're very nice. Went back to the dorm, hung round, got invited downstairs by Chris for Lily to rematch him in Tekken and for me to watch, which I did until they started playing Vice City (oh gracious). Got too many Schindler's List vibes watching that game (::weak grin to Daf and Calypso::), so I came back up here, and I've been here ever since.
So now: checking my mailbox at the campus center, attempting to get my ID picture taken (not necessary 'til Monday, but hey).
Much love to all. I miss you.
...and Glenn, love, it's gonna be weeks-if-not-months before I'll be able to hear the term not bad without mentally crossing it out and substituting pretty good. I hope you're pleased with yourself. ::half-smiles::
-Laurel
Last night was general advisory-and-freshman-party-thing-ness, met a whole lot of people but can't remember 95% of the names. ...Make that 98%. Anyway, yeah, that was 'til 10:30ish, got back and stayed online for a long long time, minus five minutes or so that I was down a floor watching Lily kick this guy Chris's butt at Tekken.
Lily made me kinda nervous by saying Chris was asking about me, but as it turns out, he's the dorm social animal, the guy going to the movies twice tonight, each with two sets of girls. (I'm not going. Matrix isn't quite my thing.) Since I spent much of my middle-school-to-high-school career being, well, ignored by popular members of the male gender, having attention paid to me by one has been rather strange. Am glad, all in all, that he does this to everybody.
So was online 'til about 2:30, which I'm really sorry Lily had to be there for, inasmuch as I pound computer keys, and at about 45 words per minute, and that can't have been good for her attempts to sleep. Not that it wasn't a thoroughly valid cause to be online, because it was, and not for just about anything on earth would I have missed it, but--::grins::--it didn't do much for my existing sleep deprivation. And was a little cold, inasmuch as I, dork that I am, forgot my blanket (being brought Saturday, along with food, which I also forgot, and my larger pillow, which I also forgot).
So this morning was, as I've told 'Nanda, all like, placement test at 8:30 am whaaaaat? 'Cause I had to test for Spanish, see where I was. So used the showers and found out several things: 1) anything in the shower stall, no matter how far off to the side, will get wet; 2) when my shampoo was named "strawberries and cream", they weren't kidding: scent is just like melted CreamSavers; and 3) if you sneeze in the shower, it makes a really loud echo. *g* Trying to dry my hair was fun, too, inasmuch as the deficiency of outlets in our room means that I cannot get close enough with my dryer to the mirror to see what I'm doing. Tried to take said dryer to the bathroom outlets, like I did when I stayed with 'Nanda, only to discover that our bathroom doesn't have outlets (though it does have thoroughly-divided shower stalls, excepting the aqueduct-things at the back to take the water to the community drain, so that's I suppose a form of trade-off).
And okay, yeah, we got lost trying to find the building. This is going to be a recurring theme, this being lost, we can tell, 'cause later on we had the same problem, mostly because the building in question didn't show up on the map (what is it with faulty college campus maps, anyway?). But eventually we walked in with several other people, several minutes late, and were given the test. It wasn't terrible, but also wasn't as easy as I expected. Should be interesting to see how I did. A 61 or higher'll test me out of the requirement, but as I'm considering minoring in Spanish (along with psych), doing so probably wouldn't be so bright.
...'course, I think my community-college credit should skip me out of the courses even if my test grades don't, so probably all I did by taking the test was mess with my advisor's head. ::shrugs::
Went after that to a freshman sessiony-thing on the history of the college, but by that time I was massively tired and stuff, so after lunch (soup and salad) Lily and I went back to the dorm and crashed, missing the other two sessions completely (lucky they weren't mandatory; all we missed out on was a chance at a free DVD of some sort). Got up in time for model-class, or whatever randomness it was, but the theater professor ran our group (goes by Becky), and she's very cool.
Went to a barbecue-thing after that that they were putting on; the two of us sat with Tanya and Megan and Rachel, all of whom live down the hall, all of whom're very nice. Went back to the dorm, hung round, got invited downstairs by Chris for Lily to rematch him in Tekken and for me to watch, which I did until they started playing Vice City (oh gracious). Got too many Schindler's List vibes watching that game (::weak grin to Daf and Calypso::), so I came back up here, and I've been here ever since.
So now: checking my mailbox at the campus center, attempting to get my ID picture taken (not necessary 'til Monday, but hey).
Much love to all. I miss you.
...and Glenn, love, it's gonna be weeks-if-not-months before I'll be able to hear the term not bad without mentally crossing it out and substituting pretty good. I hope you're pleased with yourself. ::half-smiles::
-Laurel
'kay, yeah, wow. College.
Seeing as I won one of the online-journalist positions, I don't really have to--or, indeed, want to--go into all the minutiae of my first day and a half here. Those I deem worthy *g* can have the link to my college lj as soon's I get it set up. But this board's where all the best stuff's going to be, so definitely keep checking back here.
We got here early yesterday--8:30-ish--and, with the help of the football team, who was there to carry boxes for everyone, got my stuff in here pretty quickly. Am in one of the 300-level rooms, which's technically on the fourth floor. Lily was late getting here, so we moved the dresser around and all that nonsense and arranged things properly, according to the agreements Lily and I'd made.
To give you a basic picture of our room--let's see...will provide description as best I can.
Take a rectangle and divide it just left of the middle, so that the left side gets about 40% of the space and the right gets 60%. That's our room, and there really is a wooden divider there to separate the parts. On this left side, the window faces west. Facing the north are Lily's and my computers, set up on this really long desk with shelves above. Against the south wall, but facing north, is Lily's bed. To the east is the divider, and that takes you into the half of the room where my bed's set up, along the easternmost wall, but facing north. Door is also at the easternmost wall. North on this side of the room are the closets. On the south wall, on top of the light/shelf above my bed, is my corkboard, and along it are the fridge and the dresser. On top of the dresser is the TV/VCR and the microwave. On the western side of sorts is the divider, upon which my LotR poster has been taped, and near which is random stuff of Lily's and mine, like my bean cube (think beanbag, but cube-shaped, and with slightly firmer stuffing).
That's the room, more or less, and if anyone wants illustration--::laughs::--too late; I didn't just write that whole paragraph for nothing.
Oh, hey, stuff's goin' on downstairs and I'm gonna go there for a bit. More later, I promise.
-Laurel
Seeing as I won one of the online-journalist positions, I don't really have to--or, indeed, want to--go into all the minutiae of my first day and a half here. Those I deem worthy *g* can have the link to my college lj as soon's I get it set up. But this board's where all the best stuff's going to be, so definitely keep checking back here.
We got here early yesterday--8:30-ish--and, with the help of the football team, who was there to carry boxes for everyone, got my stuff in here pretty quickly. Am in one of the 300-level rooms, which's technically on the fourth floor. Lily was late getting here, so we moved the dresser around and all that nonsense and arranged things properly, according to the agreements Lily and I'd made.
To give you a basic picture of our room--let's see...will provide description as best I can.
Take a rectangle and divide it just left of the middle, so that the left side gets about 40% of the space and the right gets 60%. That's our room, and there really is a wooden divider there to separate the parts. On this left side, the window faces west. Facing the north are Lily's and my computers, set up on this really long desk with shelves above. Against the south wall, but facing north, is Lily's bed. To the east is the divider, and that takes you into the half of the room where my bed's set up, along the easternmost wall, but facing north. Door is also at the easternmost wall. North on this side of the room are the closets. On the south wall, on top of the light/shelf above my bed, is my corkboard, and along it are the fridge and the dresser. On top of the dresser is the TV/VCR and the microwave. On the western side of sorts is the divider, upon which my LotR poster has been taped, and near which is random stuff of Lily's and mine, like my bean cube (think beanbag, but cube-shaped, and with slightly firmer stuffing).
That's the room, more or less, and if anyone wants illustration--::laughs::--too late; I didn't just write that whole paragraph for nothing.
Oh, hey, stuff's goin' on downstairs and I'm gonna go there for a bit. More later, I promise.
-Laurel
8.27.2003
8.26.2003
Okay, well, most of my life's possessions are now in cardboard boxes, bound with clear mailing tape and labeled in blue felt-tip marker. It's creepy, kind of, but somehow it still hasn't totally hit. College begins tomorrow; this's my last night truly at home. 'Cause like, even my home isn't going to feel like one anymore, is it? That's what everyone seems to say.
::laughs a bit:: 'kay, it makes me feel better that that cues M*A*S*H in my head:
Col. Flagg [hyperdramatically]: I have no home--I'm the wind.
Hawkeye [turning to BJ]: I told you he was the wind! You said he was the stars!
BJ: No, I said he was the moon!
...Right. So have had lots of goodbye-type conversations over the past several days, couple of outings to coffee shops and stuff (Erik and Sara)...::sighs::...not that it seemed real, ever, that the faces I was looking at would be so far out of my reach.
Oh gosh, I'm gonna start crying. This's bad.
I...I just...
Crap. And I've been doing so well. Being numb was okay; now I'm thawing out, and I don't think I like it.
I envy Jen and Bethie, here in town--maybe within parents' reach, but within friends' reach, too. I know I can drive home when I want to, but...but how's that ever going to be enough? I'll have to think about whether I've got chorus at night, think about whether I've got stuff going on with people and stuff...I can't be pasted to AIM all the time, I know, and I don't want to be, but...but...
...but I never envy anyone else's set of friends; I always consider my own to be the best of anybody out there. And I know this means there'll be more, but...
...right. And I'm supposed to get off in half an hour and go to sleep?
'kay, my mom can just kind of quiet down, 'cause like, I was going to have a hard time adjusting to college anyway, 'cause even without Glenn, there'd still be Bethie and 'Nanda and Erik, Aneya and Daf and Melly and Bunny to miss. And B, and SFE, and Leo Club, and MasterMinds. The plays. I've knit myself so far into this world that I try to pull out and catch my fingers on the stitches.
...'kay, that's a crappy analogy. But you know what I mean.
But it'll be okay tomorrow. Not that I'll miss anyone the less, but at least I'll be busy and stuff. And I've been okay about it heretofore, I haven't been freaked out, though mostly that's 'cause I've been numb to the idea.
I used to picture myself feeling liberated when my parents drove away, there at college. Gah. Thank goodness I have a car. I won't be home as often as I'd like, but at least it's within my reach as long as I want it.
-Laurel
::laughs a bit:: 'kay, it makes me feel better that that cues M*A*S*H in my head:
Col. Flagg [hyperdramatically]: I have no home--I'm the wind.
Hawkeye [turning to BJ]: I told you he was the wind! You said he was the stars!
BJ: No, I said he was the moon!
...Right. So have had lots of goodbye-type conversations over the past several days, couple of outings to coffee shops and stuff (Erik and Sara)...::sighs::...not that it seemed real, ever, that the faces I was looking at would be so far out of my reach.
Oh gosh, I'm gonna start crying. This's bad.
I...I just...
Crap. And I've been doing so well. Being numb was okay; now I'm thawing out, and I don't think I like it.
I envy Jen and Bethie, here in town--maybe within parents' reach, but within friends' reach, too. I know I can drive home when I want to, but...but how's that ever going to be enough? I'll have to think about whether I've got chorus at night, think about whether I've got stuff going on with people and stuff...I can't be pasted to AIM all the time, I know, and I don't want to be, but...but...
...but I never envy anyone else's set of friends; I always consider my own to be the best of anybody out there. And I know this means there'll be more, but...
...right. And I'm supposed to get off in half an hour and go to sleep?
'kay, my mom can just kind of quiet down, 'cause like, I was going to have a hard time adjusting to college anyway, 'cause even without Glenn, there'd still be Bethie and 'Nanda and Erik, Aneya and Daf and Melly and Bunny to miss. And B, and SFE, and Leo Club, and MasterMinds. The plays. I've knit myself so far into this world that I try to pull out and catch my fingers on the stitches.
...'kay, that's a crappy analogy. But you know what I mean.
But it'll be okay tomorrow. Not that I'll miss anyone the less, but at least I'll be busy and stuff. And I've been okay about it heretofore, I haven't been freaked out, though mostly that's 'cause I've been numb to the idea.
I used to picture myself feeling liberated when my parents drove away, there at college. Gah. Thank goodness I have a car. I won't be home as often as I'd like, but at least it's within my reach as long as I want it.
-Laurel
8.24.2003
::laughs:: Okay, so i-mood says that I normally feel tired, 'cause I've put up "tired" twice. But that's only 'cause that's the most recent second one, 'cause I've also felt empowered twice and spectactular twice. So yeah. 'Course, it has a point: I normally do feel at least a little tired around the times of night that I'm blogging. *g* Like now. I've gotten all these headaches recently, and I think it's 'cause I'm massively sleep-deprived. Maybe I should get more sleep. *g*
So yeah. Mini-golf + DDR + random video games + conversation + long walk + ice cream + long walk back + more conversation + adventure with phones + various other loveliness - parents = incredible night.
Mm. Will think about college tomorrow. Right now will enjoy the warmth.
-Laurel
So yeah. Mini-golf + DDR + random video games + conversation + long walk + ice cream + long walk back + more conversation + adventure with phones + various other loveliness - parents = incredible night.
Mm. Will think about college tomorrow. Right now will enjoy the warmth.
-Laurel
::laughs:: All phileo to 'Nanda and Megs, who make me laugh and then make me smile. You're right, bubbles aren't all that bad. *g*
Had a semi-idyllic morning with the little kids at church--last time 'til, what, December?--even though happy little Jesse (not Jayj's brother; someone else) was running a fever and had to go home, and though I didn't get to see Aaron or Rebekah or Olivia for more than two minutes together. Got a couple of pictures, which should be cool.
Off for some fun, will be back later tonight if I'm not out watching the stars. ::smiles::
-Laurel
Had a semi-idyllic morning with the little kids at church--last time 'til, what, December?--even though happy little Jesse (not Jayj's brother; someone else) was running a fever and had to go home, and though I didn't get to see Aaron or Rebekah or Olivia for more than two minutes together. Got a couple of pictures, which should be cool.
Off for some fun, will be back later tonight if I'm not out watching the stars. ::smiles::
-Laurel
8.23.2003
Gah. Angst and crap. My mom does not like the fact that Glenn and I are going out. Not that his mom likes it, either. ...Not that either of our moms know it's formal now; we figure we'll wait a while for that one, considering what kind of reception we've gotten thus far. And 'Nanda and Brian...ruddy crud. Just reading the blog-thing about it made me...I don't even know, I don't know what to make of it.
And Jay Jei's parents are splitting up. (He said this right off when I messaged him, so I don't think anyone's going to read this that he wouldn't be willing to tell, 'cause it's not like he'n'I tell each other secrets.) Not that you probably read this, Jayj-mon-ami, but I'm really really sorry, and I wish I knew what to say. Hope you and Jesse're all right.
Half my friends're gone to college; the other half I'll try to see again and gah, all sorts of randomness, make it stop, and give me two more weeks, just two, okay? I'll even work...or even just one week, one?
-Laurel
And Jay Jei's parents are splitting up. (He said this right off when I messaged him, so I don't think anyone's going to read this that he wouldn't be willing to tell, 'cause it's not like he'n'I tell each other secrets.) Not that you probably read this, Jayj-mon-ami, but I'm really really sorry, and I wish I knew what to say. Hope you and Jesse're all right.
Half my friends're gone to college; the other half I'll try to see again and gah, all sorts of randomness, make it stop, and give me two more weeks, just two, okay? I'll even work...or even just one week, one?
-Laurel
8.22.2003
Mm, random gatherings this week--Daf'n'Calypso on Tuesday, 'Nanda'n'Bethie'n'Erik'n'Aneya'n'Melly'n'Bunny tonight. Were fun. 'Nanda and Daf and Calypso and Melly start college Saturday; Aneya and Bethie're here after me 'cause they start Thursday and Friday.
More random gatherings in days to come, too--Christy on Saturday, maybe; hopefully Glenn on Sunday; 'nother thing with Bethie and Aneya if we can swing it; something random with Erik and/or Aneya besides that.
Played StepMania here tonight, but we've discovered one of the few downsides of berber carpeting: it sucks for DDR pads. So we played on keyboard, too, and I actually passed a couple of nines; I'm becoming impressed with myself. ::laughs:: 'Til I get to, say, a ten. Then I'll be brought back down to my proper place.
Darien Lake tomorrow with Lily and family. Maybe I'll play some DDR there, too, not being a roller coaster fan. But hopefully the rain will end by the morning and I'll be able to do water stuff.
'kay, yeah, that's about it. ::blinks:: Maybe I should get the white cheddar popcorn off our floor. *g*
-Laurel
More random gatherings in days to come, too--Christy on Saturday, maybe; hopefully Glenn on Sunday; 'nother thing with Bethie and Aneya if we can swing it; something random with Erik and/or Aneya besides that.
Played StepMania here tonight, but we've discovered one of the few downsides of berber carpeting: it sucks for DDR pads. So we played on keyboard, too, and I actually passed a couple of nines; I'm becoming impressed with myself. ::laughs:: 'Til I get to, say, a ten. Then I'll be brought back down to my proper place.
Darien Lake tomorrow with Lily and family. Maybe I'll play some DDR there, too, not being a roller coaster fan. But hopefully the rain will end by the morning and I'll be able to do water stuff.
'kay, yeah, that's about it. ::blinks:: Maybe I should get the white cheddar popcorn off our floor. *g*
-Laurel
8.19.2003
Bethie and Daf and I celebrated it last year. Now you can, too! *g*
(And according to this site, my pirate name is Mad Prudentilla Ruckham...)
My AIM's down tonight, so that's why I'm not on, if anybody's wondering. Hence the i-mood.
::blinks:: Hm, the term hence the i-mood has been used several times in the past couple of weeks. But I like the way it sounds.
-Laurel
(And according to this site, my pirate name is Mad Prudentilla Ruckham...)
My AIM's down tonight, so that's why I'm not on, if anybody's wondering. Hence the i-mood.
::blinks:: Hm, the term hence the i-mood has been used several times in the past couple of weeks. But I like the way it sounds.
-Laurel
::laughs:: Now that I've been posting every day, I feel somehow compelled to continue to do so. *g*
So...check it!
-Laurel
So...check it!
-Laurel
8.17.2003
Mmph. Went to the fair today and shucked corn and painted faces. Got burnt lobster-red, and so did Ananda, so we kind of figured that we might's well add some mosquito bites to the mix, so after a stop at her house for some DDR (sucked today, but I was trying harder levels than usual), we went up to school and walked round on the nature trail. And got bitten. And I was in shorts, so I got dirty and prickled as well, and after Aneya's case of poison ivy at B's, I was looking around for that, too.
This's why I can never get into nature except in, like, the winter and early spring. 'Cause otherwise I can hardly even look up from the trail, I'm so busy trying not to get bitten, scratched, ivy-poisoned, deer-ticked, or anything else. I seriously missed so much of that walk because I was so preoccupied with that kind of crap. The one advantage of looking down all the time was my finding a brown toad, and a cute one at that.
...B's trail wasn't like that. 'Cept the poison ivy, I guess, but Aneya seems to've been the only one unlucky enough to get into that. But the bugs were only in the shade there, and we caught grasshoppers, and we walked round and yeah, that's a trail, not this nonsense at school. ::laughs::
But painting little kids is a whole lot of fun. 'cept sometimes they didn't trust what I was doing, or rather their friends (watching intently) didn't, 'cause I wasn't as good as 'Nanda. But the little girl who wanted a yellow and blue and green and red sunburst was just adorable.
Which reminds me: next weekend's my last time with the four-year-olds before Thanksgiving break. Must bring camera of some form.
So now I'm warm around the knees, achy around the face, itchy around the legs, and cold all down my back. ::laughs:: Hence the i-mood.
::snorts:: This blog makes me sound like an unhappy person, complaining and insecure half the time. I've got to post more of my random amusing thoughts that I always mean to put up and never do.
-Laurel
This's why I can never get into nature except in, like, the winter and early spring. 'Cause otherwise I can hardly even look up from the trail, I'm so busy trying not to get bitten, scratched, ivy-poisoned, deer-ticked, or anything else. I seriously missed so much of that walk because I was so preoccupied with that kind of crap. The one advantage of looking down all the time was my finding a brown toad, and a cute one at that.
...B's trail wasn't like that. 'Cept the poison ivy, I guess, but Aneya seems to've been the only one unlucky enough to get into that. But the bugs were only in the shade there, and we caught grasshoppers, and we walked round and yeah, that's a trail, not this nonsense at school. ::laughs::
But painting little kids is a whole lot of fun. 'cept sometimes they didn't trust what I was doing, or rather their friends (watching intently) didn't, 'cause I wasn't as good as 'Nanda. But the little girl who wanted a yellow and blue and green and red sunburst was just adorable.
Which reminds me: next weekend's my last time with the four-year-olds before Thanksgiving break. Must bring camera of some form.
So now I'm warm around the knees, achy around the face, itchy around the legs, and cold all down my back. ::laughs:: Hence the i-mood.
::snorts:: This blog makes me sound like an unhappy person, complaining and insecure half the time. I've got to post more of my random amusing thoughts that I always mean to put up and never do.
-Laurel
Thursday, Part 2: Blackout
The blackout probably hit around 4:20 here. I was at work, and suddenly the lights flickered and the computers went off, but then everything came back on within a couple of seconds, so we shrugged and figured, hm, random power outage (and Chris and Michee and Tulin figured, hey, by the time our computers reboot, it'll be 4:30; let's hang out!). Since we were just recovering from all the MSBlaster crap anyway, we figured it was just our offices affected, and probably related to that. We didn't realize it was backup power.
It was when we were punching out at 4:45 (a little late; my mom'd gotten busy) that we knew it wasn't: my dad's best friend Manny, who works downstairs from us and was also leaving for the day, told us he'd heard it was all over New York, city and state both (Manny himself is from Queens, if I'm not mistaken), and into Ohio and Michigan and Canada and who knew where else. But still it didn't occur to us that that would put out...
...the traffic lights. That we figured out once we'd exited the parking lot--I was riding with my mom that day. Suddenly it dawned on us full-scale that this was going to be a power outage like we hadn't seen in quite some time (since winter of '91, right?). I'd never seen anyone try to drive without lights, and I didn't envy Bethie at all for having to do it, 'cause I'dve remembered to treat it like a stop and all, but I still would've found some way to get hit; I'm awful enough sometimes with the power on. (Happily for all of us, Bethie is a much better driver than I am, not that I've ever seen her--*g*--and made it to her church just fine, which's where she was supposed to go, and which had power, just like her house, just like her side of town, unlike my own, not that I am bitter.)
So after that weird experience, our radio tuned to the local news station and picking up all the information we could, we arrived home to my brother and his friend Scott (of the shoe-throwing and the cry of "tube farming!"). Scott lives down the street, and I don't know if anyone there was home, but he and my brother'd been playing Madden 2004, which my brother'd gotten only 24 hours before, and from their anecdote, they'd just reached the point when the game screen said "do not turn off power" when the power went out. There was no power in our house. We had: one working phone. The corded one, 'cause the cordless was out. And that was it.
So we broke out the battery-powered TVs and radio. Two of the former, two of the latter--in technicality. In reality, only one of each worked, and it took us a while to get any of them to work. After getting, on the TV, what appeared (sans the picture) to be Perry Mason and Reading Rainbow, neither of which looked likely to cut to the local news, I decided that probably half of the problem was that the TV I was holding--the only one of the two which received any channels--had no antenna. It had a holder for one, though, and the other TV's antenna looked like it would fit. Finding a small flathead screwdriver, because no Phillips that small could be located (look, this's my pathetic attempt at showing off my l337 mechanical skillz, or what in my world passes for them), I unscrewed the one antenna, removed it, and attempted to use the accompanying screw to attach the antenna to the holder.
...Interchangeable parts? Right. If they were, then my fingers're exceptionally bad with a screwdriver (also a distinct possibility), 'cause it didn't happen. What did happen, however, was that by holding the antenna into the working TV's holder, I could, in fact, triple the number of channels we were receiving. So we finally got the news, though it still didn't have a picture, and this satisfied my news-addicted dad for something like five minutes, after which he started fiddling with it, 'cause my fingers got tired and sweaty holding it at that weird angle for long, and if I so much's moved in any direction, there was a spray of static across PBS.
While Dad was trying to fix the TV the way he wanted it, I had dinner. We'd gotten our stove working (yay for gas power), but our oven, microwave, and refrigerator were shot, so since the ice cream was getting soft anyway, my dinner consisted of two curry eggs (hard-boiled, curry sauce mixed into the yolk-part) and a dish of vanilla ice cream (festooned with chocolate chips, seeing as we had them around). I think I had juice, but I don't remember.
My night consisted mostly of reading, first by natural window light, then later by candlelight (I lit; my mom and brother and Scott were playing New York State Monopoly by this time, having a grand time; my dad was trying to hook up the generator he'd bought for just this kind of situation, and had been having no luck to that point), then later by lamplight: our neighbor Keith (not Scott's dad) had helped my dad hook up the generator, and I think in exchange, each of them got one of the two plugs on it and ran the power into our respective houses via long extension cords. Keith, like any normal human being, plugged in his refrigerator; Dad, after nearly frying out the TV I'm taking to college in an attempt to hook it up, plugged in a lamp. But let me tell you, normal or night, that light felt good to have. Candlelight alone, lighting a house by flickering flames, is adventurous and cool for approximately 20 minutes. Then it gets old, especially if you're reading.
Generator didn't hold out wonderfully long: gas burns fast in those things, and when it's gone, so's your power. I did a bout of reading in the basement by book-light, idly munching the Cheez-Its my brother'd left down there earlier, and then another bout upstairs, as we'd put in more gas.
Talked to Bethie and Daffodil, too, both of them earlier than the point in the story I'm at. They were both fine. ::snorts:: 'Course, they both had power. Melly and Bunny, Erik and prolly Aneya and I were still roughing it, and I still don't know whether Glenn was in Canada, or on his way back without stoplights from Canada, or at home (close enough to my house that he'd been without power, too), but I figured he was pretty well nailed no matter where he was, and I wished I knew when that trip of his'd ended, or would end, 'cause it hadn't bothered me not to know until half the continent (okay, not really) was without power. 'Cause, like, it wouldn't exactly have given me peace of mind to know that he was in a van with 14 other people attempting to be quiet so whoever was driving them back home from Canada could navigate without stoplights, but if that's what was going on, I would've liked to have known that. I mean--::laughs::--I still don't know that. I still don't know where he was, where he is, and if it wasn't for the fact that we routinely go for a week at a time without having any certainty of whether the other is even home--::laughs again::--I'd be a lot more unsettled.
Then the generator went out for good and all, and I relocated upstairs to my bed, with my booklight, still glued to Laura Ingalls Wilder's The Long Winter, which I'd grabbed in a semi-nostalgic mood when I realized we'd been plunged back into semi-pioneer times. Came outside for a while to look at the stars--since all the lights around were out, and it wasn't too cloudy a night, you could see a lot of them, and it was kinda nice, but I never did find any constellations. Or shooting stars--I've never seen one; I feel deprived of a classic human experience somehow. *g*
I read for a while, finished the book, felt hot and it was dark and silent and after 10:30 at night and everyone else was in bed. This is not how I go to sleep. My dad has the TV on downstairs, and the light from the room shines through to my room when I leave the door open a crack, and my fan is on 'cause I'm a freak for cool breezes and for white noise, which the TV also generates, and so does my dad's snoring if he's happened to fall asleep in front of said TV. This was dark and silent and hot. And I've gone to bed after my parents before, but it'd never felt like that. So I put U2 on in my Discman and pulled on my headphones, trying to sing down the silence, and kept my book light on and scribbled a letter in red gel pen.
I never get through letters in crisis. A shot of adrenaline at Ocean Bowl, I started writing, but Bethie woke up before I got far and we went pacing. What interrupted me here, at about 11 at night, was my parents saying something about "can't believe it's closed". I assumed they meant work, but I had to go and check, so I went into their room.
My music'd been on; I hadn't even heard the phone ring, but ring it had, and it'd been my dad's boss, calling to say that the college was closed for the next day; our backup generators had kicked in that afternoon, but they'd apparently given out as more and more of the campus had lost power. So my mom and dad lay there in their bed, and I was standing on the side by the phone, and my brother'd come in and was standing around the other side, and we talked for a little bit, and my parents were excited about not having to work, but I wasn't going to be working that day anyway, so this dark and loneliness and heat was getting to me.
"I wish they'd put the lights back on," I said, to nobody in particular, looking at the ceiling.
Some two seconds later--it's true--the power came back on. Not that we knew it by the lights themselves; we'd turned them off, knowing they didn't work. But my sentence was almost interrupted by the repowering of the VCR in the room and the blinking numbers of the clock, which'd theretofore been blank. Taken aback but already half-crazy with joy at the power being back on, I went to the switch to try out the light. It flicked on.
My parents covered their eyes. "Turn it off!"
So I did, but soon we had the TV on, the news, the lights, the air conditioning, everything. It was a whole half hour before my parents trusted the restoration enough to let me fire up the internet and try to find my friends on AIM, but it happened, and I had a joyful reunion with...well, Ananda, who was more or less the only person on whom I hadn't already talked to that night, and who had not lost power. But I had a darn good time on StepMania. *g* Erik called me the next morning, but that was then, and we had, by my phone's count, something like a three-and-a-half-minute conversation before he got kicked off. And I've since talked to Bunny and Melly and Aubrey, and Aneya's been on, so things're more or less back to normal, I'm thinking, though I'm wondering where Matt's been, 'cause I haven't caught him yet, and goodness knows I've been online enough since the blackout.
So that was that, and yesterday we went down to my dad's-side relatives' houses in preparation for the reunion, which was today, and which contained the usual good food and complex geneaologies and children running around. Mom and I left early 'cause we're helping with the fair tomorrow; Dad and my brother stayed at my uncle's house again; they'll come back tomorrow.
...Well, today. It's going for three, and I've got to be at 'Nanda's house at 10:15 so we can get to the fair at ten-thirty. Oh gracious. I'd better sleep. Thus ends my saga; hope you enjoyed.
-Laurel
The blackout probably hit around 4:20 here. I was at work, and suddenly the lights flickered and the computers went off, but then everything came back on within a couple of seconds, so we shrugged and figured, hm, random power outage (and Chris and Michee and Tulin figured, hey, by the time our computers reboot, it'll be 4:30; let's hang out!). Since we were just recovering from all the MSBlaster crap anyway, we figured it was just our offices affected, and probably related to that. We didn't realize it was backup power.
It was when we were punching out at 4:45 (a little late; my mom'd gotten busy) that we knew it wasn't: my dad's best friend Manny, who works downstairs from us and was also leaving for the day, told us he'd heard it was all over New York, city and state both (Manny himself is from Queens, if I'm not mistaken), and into Ohio and Michigan and Canada and who knew where else. But still it didn't occur to us that that would put out...
...the traffic lights. That we figured out once we'd exited the parking lot--I was riding with my mom that day. Suddenly it dawned on us full-scale that this was going to be a power outage like we hadn't seen in quite some time (since winter of '91, right?). I'd never seen anyone try to drive without lights, and I didn't envy Bethie at all for having to do it, 'cause I'dve remembered to treat it like a stop and all, but I still would've found some way to get hit; I'm awful enough sometimes with the power on. (Happily for all of us, Bethie is a much better driver than I am, not that I've ever seen her--*g*--and made it to her church just fine, which's where she was supposed to go, and which had power, just like her house, just like her side of town, unlike my own, not that I am bitter.)
So after that weird experience, our radio tuned to the local news station and picking up all the information we could, we arrived home to my brother and his friend Scott (of the shoe-throwing and the cry of "tube farming!"). Scott lives down the street, and I don't know if anyone there was home, but he and my brother'd been playing Madden 2004, which my brother'd gotten only 24 hours before, and from their anecdote, they'd just reached the point when the game screen said "do not turn off power" when the power went out. There was no power in our house. We had: one working phone. The corded one, 'cause the cordless was out. And that was it.
So we broke out the battery-powered TVs and radio. Two of the former, two of the latter--in technicality. In reality, only one of each worked, and it took us a while to get any of them to work. After getting, on the TV, what appeared (sans the picture) to be Perry Mason and Reading Rainbow, neither of which looked likely to cut to the local news, I decided that probably half of the problem was that the TV I was holding--the only one of the two which received any channels--had no antenna. It had a holder for one, though, and the other TV's antenna looked like it would fit. Finding a small flathead screwdriver, because no Phillips that small could be located (look, this's my pathetic attempt at showing off my l337 mechanical skillz, or what in my world passes for them), I unscrewed the one antenna, removed it, and attempted to use the accompanying screw to attach the antenna to the holder.
...Interchangeable parts? Right. If they were, then my fingers're exceptionally bad with a screwdriver (also a distinct possibility), 'cause it didn't happen. What did happen, however, was that by holding the antenna into the working TV's holder, I could, in fact, triple the number of channels we were receiving. So we finally got the news, though it still didn't have a picture, and this satisfied my news-addicted dad for something like five minutes, after which he started fiddling with it, 'cause my fingers got tired and sweaty holding it at that weird angle for long, and if I so much's moved in any direction, there was a spray of static across PBS.
While Dad was trying to fix the TV the way he wanted it, I had dinner. We'd gotten our stove working (yay for gas power), but our oven, microwave, and refrigerator were shot, so since the ice cream was getting soft anyway, my dinner consisted of two curry eggs (hard-boiled, curry sauce mixed into the yolk-part) and a dish of vanilla ice cream (festooned with chocolate chips, seeing as we had them around). I think I had juice, but I don't remember.
My night consisted mostly of reading, first by natural window light, then later by candlelight (I lit; my mom and brother and Scott were playing New York State Monopoly by this time, having a grand time; my dad was trying to hook up the generator he'd bought for just this kind of situation, and had been having no luck to that point), then later by lamplight: our neighbor Keith (not Scott's dad) had helped my dad hook up the generator, and I think in exchange, each of them got one of the two plugs on it and ran the power into our respective houses via long extension cords. Keith, like any normal human being, plugged in his refrigerator; Dad, after nearly frying out the TV I'm taking to college in an attempt to hook it up, plugged in a lamp. But let me tell you, normal or night, that light felt good to have. Candlelight alone, lighting a house by flickering flames, is adventurous and cool for approximately 20 minutes. Then it gets old, especially if you're reading.
Generator didn't hold out wonderfully long: gas burns fast in those things, and when it's gone, so's your power. I did a bout of reading in the basement by book-light, idly munching the Cheez-Its my brother'd left down there earlier, and then another bout upstairs, as we'd put in more gas.
Talked to Bethie and Daffodil, too, both of them earlier than the point in the story I'm at. They were both fine. ::snorts:: 'Course, they both had power. Melly and Bunny, Erik and prolly Aneya and I were still roughing it, and I still don't know whether Glenn was in Canada, or on his way back without stoplights from Canada, or at home (close enough to my house that he'd been without power, too), but I figured he was pretty well nailed no matter where he was, and I wished I knew when that trip of his'd ended, or would end, 'cause it hadn't bothered me not to know until half the continent (okay, not really) was without power. 'Cause, like, it wouldn't exactly have given me peace of mind to know that he was in a van with 14 other people attempting to be quiet so whoever was driving them back home from Canada could navigate without stoplights, but if that's what was going on, I would've liked to have known that. I mean--::laughs::--I still don't know that. I still don't know where he was, where he is, and if it wasn't for the fact that we routinely go for a week at a time without having any certainty of whether the other is even home--::laughs again::--I'd be a lot more unsettled.
Then the generator went out for good and all, and I relocated upstairs to my bed, with my booklight, still glued to Laura Ingalls Wilder's The Long Winter, which I'd grabbed in a semi-nostalgic mood when I realized we'd been plunged back into semi-pioneer times. Came outside for a while to look at the stars--since all the lights around were out, and it wasn't too cloudy a night, you could see a lot of them, and it was kinda nice, but I never did find any constellations. Or shooting stars--I've never seen one; I feel deprived of a classic human experience somehow. *g*
I read for a while, finished the book, felt hot and it was dark and silent and after 10:30 at night and everyone else was in bed. This is not how I go to sleep. My dad has the TV on downstairs, and the light from the room shines through to my room when I leave the door open a crack, and my fan is on 'cause I'm a freak for cool breezes and for white noise, which the TV also generates, and so does my dad's snoring if he's happened to fall asleep in front of said TV. This was dark and silent and hot. And I've gone to bed after my parents before, but it'd never felt like that. So I put U2 on in my Discman and pulled on my headphones, trying to sing down the silence, and kept my book light on and scribbled a letter in red gel pen.
I never get through letters in crisis. A shot of adrenaline at Ocean Bowl, I started writing, but Bethie woke up before I got far and we went pacing. What interrupted me here, at about 11 at night, was my parents saying something about "can't believe it's closed". I assumed they meant work, but I had to go and check, so I went into their room.
My music'd been on; I hadn't even heard the phone ring, but ring it had, and it'd been my dad's boss, calling to say that the college was closed for the next day; our backup generators had kicked in that afternoon, but they'd apparently given out as more and more of the campus had lost power. So my mom and dad lay there in their bed, and I was standing on the side by the phone, and my brother'd come in and was standing around the other side, and we talked for a little bit, and my parents were excited about not having to work, but I wasn't going to be working that day anyway, so this dark and loneliness and heat was getting to me.
"I wish they'd put the lights back on," I said, to nobody in particular, looking at the ceiling.
Some two seconds later--it's true--the power came back on. Not that we knew it by the lights themselves; we'd turned them off, knowing they didn't work. But my sentence was almost interrupted by the repowering of the VCR in the room and the blinking numbers of the clock, which'd theretofore been blank. Taken aback but already half-crazy with joy at the power being back on, I went to the switch to try out the light. It flicked on.
My parents covered their eyes. "Turn it off!"
So I did, but soon we had the TV on, the news, the lights, the air conditioning, everything. It was a whole half hour before my parents trusted the restoration enough to let me fire up the internet and try to find my friends on AIM, but it happened, and I had a joyful reunion with...well, Ananda, who was more or less the only person on whom I hadn't already talked to that night, and who had not lost power. But I had a darn good time on StepMania. *g* Erik called me the next morning, but that was then, and we had, by my phone's count, something like a three-and-a-half-minute conversation before he got kicked off. And I've since talked to Bunny and Melly and Aubrey, and Aneya's been on, so things're more or less back to normal, I'm thinking, though I'm wondering where Matt's been, 'cause I haven't caught him yet, and goodness knows I've been online enough since the blackout.
So that was that, and yesterday we went down to my dad's-side relatives' houses in preparation for the reunion, which was today, and which contained the usual good food and complex geneaologies and children running around. Mom and I left early 'cause we're helping with the fair tomorrow; Dad and my brother stayed at my uncle's house again; they'll come back tomorrow.
...Well, today. It's going for three, and I've got to be at 'Nanda's house at 10:15 so we can get to the fair at ten-thirty. Oh gracious. I'd better sleep. Thus ends my saga; hope you enjoyed.
-Laurel
8.15.2003
Thursday, Part 1: Summary of My Day, Pre-Blackout
::laughs:: To celebrate the electricity being back on in my house, i-mood is currently "empowered", and the halo is supposed to be a ring of light.
'kay, yesterday, as I've said, was already going to have been rather on the weird side. Started out with more repercussions from the MSBlaster worm, which hit the computers. Mine was one of the working ones, so I got booted off it and was put in the other office, by myself, to do filing. ...Got bored, so decided to take the Christmas Furby that someone'd left on my computer forever ago and show Bethie, who was working down the hall.
Well, I didn't realize that the Furby had batteries in it. Since late June I've been working at that computer, and I've never had it turn on. ...But then, I've never picked it up. So there in my mom's office, where I was looking for Bethie (who doesn't work for my mom, she works for my mom's colleague Kristine), this Furby turned on and babbled and then started snoring or something. Several times. I'm watching, horrified, getting Life in the Madhouse vibes (*g* to Aneya), when my mom realized that it turns off if you set it down. Which I did, and quickly. And then I picked it up a little more carefully and found Bethie, and then my hand slipped and it started off again, and Bethie and I stared, and then I figured I ought to go back to work, which I did.
Trip to Subway for lunch was really more creepy than random--Erik's Subway, yeah, but he wasn't there (he never is when I'm in the area, for some reason). It really shouldn'tve freaked me so much to see Bitsy in there, but it did. ...Bitsy is the name I'm giving her because, frankly, she scares me, so she could use a silly-sounding name. (Wait, Daf'n'Nanda, was your bus driver's name Bitsy or Betsy? If the former, my apologies.) And there's a really long tangent behind this, but you're gonna need it for context, so here goes.
Of all the people who used to openly get after me in middle school, I think she's the only one who never really stopped. Which's bad, 'cause with Alisha, that was really really bad, but at least it was open derision. It's Bitsy's kind that gets me, she pretends it's pleasantry, but you catch the barb underneath. 'Cause like, the problem she's got with me is worse than the problem anyone else had. Alisha, the problem was that she thought I was annoying ('least that's what she told me when I asked in sixth grade what it was), however she happened to define that, and that I was friends with Megan, whom a lot of people didn't get along with back then. Bitsy's never quite explained her reasoning, but judging from how it started, I think her problem has always been that she thinks I'm a child.
Like it started because her neighbor used to babysit my brother and me, and I went there 'til the end of seventh grade, which I know made me thirteen, but it wasn't 'cause I needed to be watched, it was because I couldn't watch my little brother. He didn't listen to me then at all, he had no qualms about totally disregarding any and all of my attempts at authority, and because at that point he couldn't be trusted not to get into trouble, he went, and because my parents didn't want me home by myself all day, I did, too. Only Bitsy thought that was ridiculous, thought that made me a baby, and so, when she was done teasing me about this, she started asking me questions like I was five: "Oh, are those birthday invitations? When's your birthday? Oh, you must be excited!", and you couldn't just tell her to shut up, 'cause they were perfectly civil questions, she'd just say she was taking polite interest, 'cept she wasn't, 'cause you don't mock someone out and then take polite interest in them. And she did this, on and off, last year, and it creeped me out all to heck, especially since I keep looking like a little kid in front of her. Like she was there when I was waving like a maniac to Bunny during the fire drill, and she was there when I got sick in gym class like a first-grader (I got some wonderful facetiousness from her about that one)...and it's frustrating to me, 'cause I didn't ever do anything to her. I just couldn't watch my brother. Which I tried to explain to her, and which was not my fault, and--
--and she wasn't there when Aubrey was like a living death in the eleventh grade, the stuff about his home and his eating and all his massive troubles in school, all that madness that nearly drowned us, and she wasn't there for the crap earlier this summer we all went through, those're two not-childish things my friends and I've ended up dealing with, and I won't say I didn't cry, but I'll say I didn't run. Those weren't kid-things.
So here I am in Subway, not by myself, but with my mother. Bitsy is there with her friends, all of them more or less popular, all having drove themselves. My mom, who is normally completely wonderful, is humming along in a rather off-key way with the music, and then gets into a loudish conversation with the enthusiastic cashier-guy (aged about forty) about the benefits/drawbacks of a Sub Club card, and meanwhile I am trying to get my drink and I'm trying not to look at Bitsy who's at the table right behind me, and in trying to look natural, I manage to hit two taps at once and I get drips of Orange Slice down my hand, but there aren't any napkins at the soda fountain, so I have to wait there for my mom while the Sub Club thing is being explained, the soda drying into orange stripes around my wrist, holding my drink, and there is no possible way not to look five years old in that situation, so I'm there instead in stonefaced agony, and I can see Bitsy and her friends looking in what I think is my mom's direction, but I can't really tell, and I don't want to know, and so we finally (finally finally finally) get out of there and go back to our minivan (which I had never hated until that moment) and drive away.
And oh, yeah. Erik wasn't behind the counter, but Kelly-from-tenth-grade was, and maybe she was being businesslike, but she could have at least returned the smile I gave her, could have made some flicker of knowing who I was; I haven't changed so much in a couple of months that I'm unrecognizable. (But don't ask her about that, Erik, please don't. It's not her fault Bitsy was in there, and that's half of why it bothers me, 'cause I could've used the smile around then.)
So went back to work in a weird frame of mind, filed for a while, then was sent on an errand to get this folder processed in liberal arts. Did this and brought it back, and they're like, oh, they were supposed to send it to the next department, will you go?. And I said I would. Do you know where it is?, I was asked. I said I did, 'cause I thought I did, so I went.
Only when I got there, turns out that the department and the people who process for the department, or whoever I'd stumbled across, are two different things, and I'd been thinking of the wrong one. So I got sent to Building 70. Do you know where it is? the guy there asked me. I said this time that I didn't.
...And was thereby given a completely terrible set of directions: well, it's hard to find, and with the construction, I don't know how you'll get to it...but you kinda go up the hill and go diagonal. ...Okay, this's like an 80-building campus or something. The building I was in was in a sort of depression area. Every building was up the hill from it. So I tried to follow which way he'd pointed. But I couldn't find any building labeled 70. So having made the rounds of the area in the 90-degree heat, I checked the campus map.
Building 70, according to that map, did not exist. ...Had I heard it wrong? I saw 74, 76, and 78. Maybe I'd try 76. So I tried to follow that way. Didn't find 76 where the map said it was.
Took a look at the file I'd had in my hands. There was no address on it. So even if I did get to 70, or 76, or whatever the heck it was, I wouldn't know who to take it to. So enough of that; I was going back to liberal arts, who was supposed to send it on anyway, and get them to forward it. I went back.
...Only Marcia, who'd processed the file, wasn't there; she was at lunch (at two o'clock?) or something; both she and her coworkers were gone, there was one lady in another room off to the side, and she was meeting with a student. So I looked at the campus map in there. ...There was a Building 70. Oh, that was right, the maps outside were old. This must be it.
Only it wasn't. It wasn't across from Building 17, like it was supposed to be, and it wasn't near Buildings 71, 72, or 73, which I found halfway across campus. So I asked a janitor-guy working in 7-A (art building), which was right next to those. He said he didn't know, but I could try Building 76, which was just over that way (pointing with a free art-dust-covered finger).
So I went to 76, where I found a very patient niceish lady who looked at her map, which, as the newest edition of the map, had Building 70 as someplace different from where the other maps had said (or not said). But then she took a look at my folder and told me that I needed to go back to liberal arts and have them tell me where in the building to send it, 'cause it was a big building.
Since I couldn't see which of the buildings was #70 from her window anyway, and she said it was a little hard to get to, I took her advice, went back to Marcia, who informed me that she didn't realize they were supposed to forward it, and in any case she didn't have a student to do it, so I'd have to (the post-it said "rush please"). Building 70 was--and she named the building.
Gave the building its name. The new building, the multimillion-dollar-project building I heard about all last summer, which does not have a number on its front ('cause I'd looked as I'd walked by all those times), and which no one had called by its real name, and which was not hard to get to 'cause of the construction (first direction guy has got to have been insane, you just don't know...), and which, had anyone told me what Building 70 was, would have gotten me there in the space of five minutes. I think Marcia thought I was going to cry; the look I gave her was, I imagine, what can only be described as doleful. I'd just walked across campus twice, and around it who knows how many times, for an hour and more in the 90-degree heat to be directed where?!
Well, as it turns out, it wasn't just 70 in that building, but also Buildings 72 and 74. So once I got the name of the lady I needed to give the file to, I had to figure out how to get there. So I asked someone in the building, who directed me upstairs. I finally found her, apologized for the wait, I'd known it'd been a rush job.
Lady looks at me. "I didn't even know it was coming."
And when I get back, an hour and 45 minutes (no kidding; it's a big campus) after I'd set out? The girl whose file it was had called. She's thinking of changing her major. Which would mean that that particular file would be pointless, as another one would have to be printed and sent to the other department, which's considerably closer to the office I left.
So I told my story, the other students and the secretaries laughed in the right places and were sympathetic, and Chris told me one of his own, and then Tulin and I went and got freezy-pops from the division's kitchen, and things were a little better.
I got only slight blistering on my sandaled feet, which impresses me; I got only the mildest of sunburns if any, which, with my Irish-Welsh-English skin, impresses me even more.
And Ms. Chen called, prolly the nuttiest professor on campus, and hassled Tulin for a while about an applicant, so that was another nice random touch to our day, 'cause Ms. Chen always makes things random.
...Had she waited ten minutes more to call, with any luck her power would've gone out, 'cause she was working at home, and it was quarter after four by this point, and the traffic lights were about to go out all over town, but that's a story for another day, 'cause Part 1 leaves off here.
-Laurel
::laughs:: To celebrate the electricity being back on in my house, i-mood is currently "empowered", and the halo is supposed to be a ring of light.
'kay, yesterday, as I've said, was already going to have been rather on the weird side. Started out with more repercussions from the MSBlaster worm, which hit the computers. Mine was one of the working ones, so I got booted off it and was put in the other office, by myself, to do filing. ...Got bored, so decided to take the Christmas Furby that someone'd left on my computer forever ago and show Bethie, who was working down the hall.
Well, I didn't realize that the Furby had batteries in it. Since late June I've been working at that computer, and I've never had it turn on. ...But then, I've never picked it up. So there in my mom's office, where I was looking for Bethie (who doesn't work for my mom, she works for my mom's colleague Kristine), this Furby turned on and babbled and then started snoring or something. Several times. I'm watching, horrified, getting Life in the Madhouse vibes (*g* to Aneya), when my mom realized that it turns off if you set it down. Which I did, and quickly. And then I picked it up a little more carefully and found Bethie, and then my hand slipped and it started off again, and Bethie and I stared, and then I figured I ought to go back to work, which I did.
Trip to Subway for lunch was really more creepy than random--Erik's Subway, yeah, but he wasn't there (he never is when I'm in the area, for some reason). It really shouldn'tve freaked me so much to see Bitsy in there, but it did. ...Bitsy is the name I'm giving her because, frankly, she scares me, so she could use a silly-sounding name. (Wait, Daf'n'Nanda, was your bus driver's name Bitsy or Betsy? If the former, my apologies.) And there's a really long tangent behind this, but you're gonna need it for context, so here goes.
Of all the people who used to openly get after me in middle school, I think she's the only one who never really stopped. Which's bad, 'cause with Alisha, that was really really bad, but at least it was open derision. It's Bitsy's kind that gets me, she pretends it's pleasantry, but you catch the barb underneath. 'Cause like, the problem she's got with me is worse than the problem anyone else had. Alisha, the problem was that she thought I was annoying ('least that's what she told me when I asked in sixth grade what it was), however she happened to define that, and that I was friends with Megan, whom a lot of people didn't get along with back then. Bitsy's never quite explained her reasoning, but judging from how it started, I think her problem has always been that she thinks I'm a child.
Like it started because her neighbor used to babysit my brother and me, and I went there 'til the end of seventh grade, which I know made me thirteen, but it wasn't 'cause I needed to be watched, it was because I couldn't watch my little brother. He didn't listen to me then at all, he had no qualms about totally disregarding any and all of my attempts at authority, and because at that point he couldn't be trusted not to get into trouble, he went, and because my parents didn't want me home by myself all day, I did, too. Only Bitsy thought that was ridiculous, thought that made me a baby, and so, when she was done teasing me about this, she started asking me questions like I was five: "Oh, are those birthday invitations? When's your birthday? Oh, you must be excited!", and you couldn't just tell her to shut up, 'cause they were perfectly civil questions, she'd just say she was taking polite interest, 'cept she wasn't, 'cause you don't mock someone out and then take polite interest in them. And she did this, on and off, last year, and it creeped me out all to heck, especially since I keep looking like a little kid in front of her. Like she was there when I was waving like a maniac to Bunny during the fire drill, and she was there when I got sick in gym class like a first-grader (I got some wonderful facetiousness from her about that one)...and it's frustrating to me, 'cause I didn't ever do anything to her. I just couldn't watch my brother. Which I tried to explain to her, and which was not my fault, and--
--and she wasn't there when Aubrey was like a living death in the eleventh grade, the stuff about his home and his eating and all his massive troubles in school, all that madness that nearly drowned us, and she wasn't there for the crap earlier this summer we all went through, those're two not-childish things my friends and I've ended up dealing with, and I won't say I didn't cry, but I'll say I didn't run. Those weren't kid-things.
So here I am in Subway, not by myself, but with my mother. Bitsy is there with her friends, all of them more or less popular, all having drove themselves. My mom, who is normally completely wonderful, is humming along in a rather off-key way with the music, and then gets into a loudish conversation with the enthusiastic cashier-guy (aged about forty) about the benefits/drawbacks of a Sub Club card, and meanwhile I am trying to get my drink and I'm trying not to look at Bitsy who's at the table right behind me, and in trying to look natural, I manage to hit two taps at once and I get drips of Orange Slice down my hand, but there aren't any napkins at the soda fountain, so I have to wait there for my mom while the Sub Club thing is being explained, the soda drying into orange stripes around my wrist, holding my drink, and there is no possible way not to look five years old in that situation, so I'm there instead in stonefaced agony, and I can see Bitsy and her friends looking in what I think is my mom's direction, but I can't really tell, and I don't want to know, and so we finally (finally finally finally) get out of there and go back to our minivan (which I had never hated until that moment) and drive away.
And oh, yeah. Erik wasn't behind the counter, but Kelly-from-tenth-grade was, and maybe she was being businesslike, but she could have at least returned the smile I gave her, could have made some flicker of knowing who I was; I haven't changed so much in a couple of months that I'm unrecognizable. (But don't ask her about that, Erik, please don't. It's not her fault Bitsy was in there, and that's half of why it bothers me, 'cause I could've used the smile around then.)
So went back to work in a weird frame of mind, filed for a while, then was sent on an errand to get this folder processed in liberal arts. Did this and brought it back, and they're like, oh, they were supposed to send it to the next department, will you go?. And I said I would. Do you know where it is?, I was asked. I said I did, 'cause I thought I did, so I went.
Only when I got there, turns out that the department and the people who process for the department, or whoever I'd stumbled across, are two different things, and I'd been thinking of the wrong one. So I got sent to Building 70. Do you know where it is? the guy there asked me. I said this time that I didn't.
...And was thereby given a completely terrible set of directions: well, it's hard to find, and with the construction, I don't know how you'll get to it...but you kinda go up the hill and go diagonal. ...Okay, this's like an 80-building campus or something. The building I was in was in a sort of depression area. Every building was up the hill from it. So I tried to follow which way he'd pointed. But I couldn't find any building labeled 70. So having made the rounds of the area in the 90-degree heat, I checked the campus map.
Building 70, according to that map, did not exist. ...Had I heard it wrong? I saw 74, 76, and 78. Maybe I'd try 76. So I tried to follow that way. Didn't find 76 where the map said it was.
Took a look at the file I'd had in my hands. There was no address on it. So even if I did get to 70, or 76, or whatever the heck it was, I wouldn't know who to take it to. So enough of that; I was going back to liberal arts, who was supposed to send it on anyway, and get them to forward it. I went back.
...Only Marcia, who'd processed the file, wasn't there; she was at lunch (at two o'clock?) or something; both she and her coworkers were gone, there was one lady in another room off to the side, and she was meeting with a student. So I looked at the campus map in there. ...There was a Building 70. Oh, that was right, the maps outside were old. This must be it.
Only it wasn't. It wasn't across from Building 17, like it was supposed to be, and it wasn't near Buildings 71, 72, or 73, which I found halfway across campus. So I asked a janitor-guy working in 7-A (art building), which was right next to those. He said he didn't know, but I could try Building 76, which was just over that way (pointing with a free art-dust-covered finger).
So I went to 76, where I found a very patient niceish lady who looked at her map, which, as the newest edition of the map, had Building 70 as someplace different from where the other maps had said (or not said). But then she took a look at my folder and told me that I needed to go back to liberal arts and have them tell me where in the building to send it, 'cause it was a big building.
Since I couldn't see which of the buildings was #70 from her window anyway, and she said it was a little hard to get to, I took her advice, went back to Marcia, who informed me that she didn't realize they were supposed to forward it, and in any case she didn't have a student to do it, so I'd have to (the post-it said "rush please"). Building 70 was--and she named the building.
Gave the building its name. The new building, the multimillion-dollar-project building I heard about all last summer, which does not have a number on its front ('cause I'd looked as I'd walked by all those times), and which no one had called by its real name, and which was not hard to get to 'cause of the construction (first direction guy has got to have been insane, you just don't know...), and which, had anyone told me what Building 70 was, would have gotten me there in the space of five minutes. I think Marcia thought I was going to cry; the look I gave her was, I imagine, what can only be described as doleful. I'd just walked across campus twice, and around it who knows how many times, for an hour and more in the 90-degree heat to be directed where?!
Well, as it turns out, it wasn't just 70 in that building, but also Buildings 72 and 74. So once I got the name of the lady I needed to give the file to, I had to figure out how to get there. So I asked someone in the building, who directed me upstairs. I finally found her, apologized for the wait, I'd known it'd been a rush job.
Lady looks at me. "I didn't even know it was coming."
And when I get back, an hour and 45 minutes (no kidding; it's a big campus) after I'd set out? The girl whose file it was had called. She's thinking of changing her major. Which would mean that that particular file would be pointless, as another one would have to be printed and sent to the other department, which's considerably closer to the office I left.
So I told my story, the other students and the secretaries laughed in the right places and were sympathetic, and Chris told me one of his own, and then Tulin and I went and got freezy-pops from the division's kitchen, and things were a little better.
I got only slight blistering on my sandaled feet, which impresses me; I got only the mildest of sunburns if any, which, with my Irish-Welsh-English skin, impresses me even more.
And Ms. Chen called, prolly the nuttiest professor on campus, and hassled Tulin for a while about an applicant, so that was another nice random touch to our day, 'cause Ms. Chen always makes things random.
...Had she waited ten minutes more to call, with any luck her power would've gone out, 'cause she was working at home, and it was quarter after four by this point, and the traffic lights were about to go out all over town, but that's a story for another day, 'cause Part 1 leaves off here.
-Laurel
8.13.2003
I'm so bored. Like I'm almost never bored, and today I was bored out of my mind, so bored that the only time I was ever truly having fun was running errands, 'cause I was driving, and that's at least interesting. I mean, last night was entertaining in the extreme, and today I was bored as all get out, and tomorrow is work, so I'll be bored, but just in different ways.
...Well, maybe not. Bethie'll be there.
But mmph. I'd go to bed if I hadn't slept 'til 10:30 this morning.
-Laurel
...Well, maybe not. Bethie'll be there.
But mmph. I'd go to bed if I hadn't slept 'til 10:30 this morning.
-Laurel
Had a very fun night--drove over to 'Nanda's. She's got a converter-thing so we can hook up a DDR pad to her computer and play StepMania (all 300-some songs, whee!), so that's what we did--I got several more grades of A, including another one on the version of "Dam Dariram" we played at Darien Lake, and, more importantly at present, one on the Konamix version (three-footer) of "Absolute". This's especially wonderful 'cause I've been trying to get an A on that for a long time now, and it's been bothering me that I couldn't. ...Also played some of her non-DDR tracks, like Newsboys' "Love Liberty Disco", which was okay, and Strong Bad's "Everybody to the Limit", which was chock full of "air", but very fun. None of the A ones were on anything higher than a 4, mind, but it was a great time anyway.
And after that (and after getting water 'cause her room is warm and we were jumping and stomping and all the stuff that goes with DDR), we played a whole lot of Danger Mouse for Commodore 64, 'cause 'Nanda d/led a C64 emulator and the game, which's text-based (but with graphics!) and amusing. We got pretty far, even into Part II, and some of my more crackpot theories ended up working out, and some of her theories did, too, so together we did rather well for ourselves. But now we're stuck. *g* (What d'you do with, for example, a basket, a crowbar, and a bottle of glue that'll either get you past a snake or though a nailed-shut door? ::grins::)
And then I looked at her other games--most amusing of which was "Sheep in Space", where your stomach serves as your fuel tank (watch out for being peckish--*g*). And then I drove home with U2 on and it was nice, and now I'm going to bed soonish. More another day.
...oh, and not that you'll see this in time, but best test-wishes, Erik; you'll do fine.
-Laurel
And after that (and after getting water 'cause her room is warm and we were jumping and stomping and all the stuff that goes with DDR), we played a whole lot of Danger Mouse for Commodore 64, 'cause 'Nanda d/led a C64 emulator and the game, which's text-based (but with graphics!) and amusing. We got pretty far, even into Part II, and some of my more crackpot theories ended up working out, and some of her theories did, too, so together we did rather well for ourselves. But now we're stuck. *g* (What d'you do with, for example, a basket, a crowbar, and a bottle of glue that'll either get you past a snake or though a nailed-shut door? ::grins::)
And then I looked at her other games--most amusing of which was "Sheep in Space", where your stomach serves as your fuel tank (watch out for being peckish--*g*). And then I drove home with U2 on and it was nice, and now I'm going to bed soonish. More another day.
...oh, and not that you'll see this in time, but best test-wishes, Erik; you'll do fine.
-Laurel
8.11.2003
Mm, I'm tired and I'd really rather forget the getting-lost portion of last night, as my mom got maddish at me over cell phone about it and it put me in a bad mood, which I took out on Erik, 'cause I was crappy that way.
But before that we went for pizza, which was very cool. People there: 'Nanda, Brian, Daf, Calypso, Erik, Aneya, Kathy, Christy, Matt, Jay Jei, and me. Was really good to see Jayj, 'cause I hadn't all summer, and I've missed his randomness. As Ananda mentioned on her blog, mostly the guys talked about D&D, which was kind of boring 'cause I don't play it 'cause I just don't care, but it was really nice to see everybody, and it made me wish the night could be a little longer.
Which's why I thought it a good idea to go down to the beach for ice cream, as Calpyso suggested to us. And it was a good idea, 'cept Calypso gave some pretty mediocre directions (yes, they were, and there'll be no further argument on that point--anyone who directs us to a road located on the other side of the expressway needs to be a little more specific, especially when said person cannot direct us to the most obvious route solely on the grounds that there's a stoplight on that route, which apparently is horror of horrors and must be avoided--!), which put us out in the middle of ruddy nowhere, whereupon we noticed that Erik's gas gauge was nearing E, so we thought, naive little children that we were, that there would be a gas station within ten to twenty miles of the highway exit. There was not.
Half an hour, two stops for directions, some tension, various cell phone calls (looking for cell phones that more or less did not, as it turns out, exist), and random nonsense later, we came to a gas station, whereupon we discovered that we were now 45-minutes-to-an-hour away from said beach. As it was nearing nine o'clock, we decided to scrap that, so we went home. Whereupon I got lectured for reasons too pointless to relate, so I went to bed so's not to deal with it, and I woke up nearly twelve hours later and proceeded to have a calm and semi-normal day. Made a CD, so all but six of my mp3s're off the system now, and I've deleted my shortcut to KaZaA, so even though my brother's prolly still using it, I am not. Hurrah for return to legality.
Also scanned my computer online via McAfee (thanks to merani for the link, though she's maybe getting frightened at my continual references to her lj--*g*) to try to determine why my computer will not load pages with Geocities in them. Did not make any progress--the only virus I had affected three .exe files, and was not serious, and is now gone, as I deleted all three files (not needing them). And have done other scans on my computer, and have defragmented and reset my internet settings, and still the pages will not load, and my computer will still not tell me why. It will only say, in a little pop-up box, that the page is unavailable or cannot be found. And if I go to geocities.com itself, I get a WhitePages.com listing that looks very much like a full-screen pop-up ad. Hmph.
So lest you think I'm in a bad mood, which I'm not exactly, most of my weekend has been lovely, and I really don't want to leave, and so far the best part of going off to college is going to be coming back home. But the 27th removes me by an hour and a half, and I'm sure there'll be good things there, even though there're things about that that scare me.
Work tomorrow, so will sleep.
-Laurel
But before that we went for pizza, which was very cool. People there: 'Nanda, Brian, Daf, Calypso, Erik, Aneya, Kathy, Christy, Matt, Jay Jei, and me. Was really good to see Jayj, 'cause I hadn't all summer, and I've missed his randomness. As Ananda mentioned on her blog, mostly the guys talked about D&D, which was kind of boring 'cause I don't play it 'cause I just don't care, but it was really nice to see everybody, and it made me wish the night could be a little longer.
Which's why I thought it a good idea to go down to the beach for ice cream, as Calpyso suggested to us. And it was a good idea, 'cept Calypso gave some pretty mediocre directions (yes, they were, and there'll be no further argument on that point--anyone who directs us to a road located on the other side of the expressway needs to be a little more specific, especially when said person cannot direct us to the most obvious route solely on the grounds that there's a stoplight on that route, which apparently is horror of horrors and must be avoided--!), which put us out in the middle of ruddy nowhere, whereupon we noticed that Erik's gas gauge was nearing E, so we thought, naive little children that we were, that there would be a gas station within ten to twenty miles of the highway exit. There was not.
Half an hour, two stops for directions, some tension, various cell phone calls (looking for cell phones that more or less did not, as it turns out, exist), and random nonsense later, we came to a gas station, whereupon we discovered that we were now 45-minutes-to-an-hour away from said beach. As it was nearing nine o'clock, we decided to scrap that, so we went home. Whereupon I got lectured for reasons too pointless to relate, so I went to bed so's not to deal with it, and I woke up nearly twelve hours later and proceeded to have a calm and semi-normal day. Made a CD, so all but six of my mp3s're off the system now, and I've deleted my shortcut to KaZaA, so even though my brother's prolly still using it, I am not. Hurrah for return to legality.
Also scanned my computer online via McAfee (thanks to merani for the link, though she's maybe getting frightened at my continual references to her lj--*g*) to try to determine why my computer will not load pages with Geocities in them. Did not make any progress--the only virus I had affected three .exe files, and was not serious, and is now gone, as I deleted all three files (not needing them). And have done other scans on my computer, and have defragmented and reset my internet settings, and still the pages will not load, and my computer will still not tell me why. It will only say, in a little pop-up box, that the page is unavailable or cannot be found. And if I go to geocities.com itself, I get a WhitePages.com listing that looks very much like a full-screen pop-up ad. Hmph.
So lest you think I'm in a bad mood, which I'm not exactly, most of my weekend has been lovely, and I really don't want to leave, and so far the best part of going off to college is going to be coming back home. But the 27th removes me by an hour and a half, and I'm sure there'll be good things there, even though there're things about that that scare me.
Work tomorrow, so will sleep.
-Laurel
8.09.2003
You are a piano. It's easy for you to make friends
as there are lots of people who share a few
similar personality traits with you. However
there arn't that many people who you share a
lot of personality traits with.
What musical instrument are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
::giggles:: Kinda fun idea. ...Yay, I like piano!
Oh, and definitely check out Lord of the Peeps, also linked at bottom of side-column (thanks to merani for finding it and Ananda for sending it).
-Laurel
::laughs:: I am not supposed to have this much fun at Wegmans.
Went there this morning with my dad, just for the kick, and ended up being completely amused. Like seriously, I used to go shopping with my parents all the time when I was little, and it was cool, you got free chocolate chip cookies and stuff for being under eight years old...and then after a while my parents started going without us most of the time, and that was okay, 'cause it didn't interest me anymore--
--but I don't know, maybe I just like it now. Supermarkets are cool. I don't know, they just are. ::laughs::
'Cause, for one thing, you get all this completely freakified randomness. ...Like buffalo meat. My dad and I found it there in the meat section, $5 a pound, this package shaped a lot like the containers for blocks of mozzarella, or Oscar Mayer bologna or something. Was ground up, rather red, had a little stencily picture of a buffalo on it. ::snorts:: Try putting that in your Hamburger Helper. ...My dad toyed with the idea of getting some, but I was a little wary (even though it turns out they're not endangered, they're grown on farms) and said we should ask Mom and get some next week if she liked the idea. (She didn't. )
And pizza soup. That we did get. I have no idea whether it'll be edible (hm, it'd better be; I'm taking it to work next week...), but we had to try. *g*
And raspberry Fluff, which looked truly disgusting in its shade of reddish-pink, and which I could not imagine tasting good on a sandwich, though I think it'd be decent in hot chocolate. We didn't get any of that, as my dad pointed out that we had a jar of the original-variety Fluff in our cupboard that's gone uneaten for several months.
And then there're things that're just fun, things you used to get when you were a kid--boysenberry syrup (that stuff was so good; it's a pity I'm not into pancakes anymore...) and colored ice cream cones (you remember those things, dyed pink and green and blue, and you never wanted the green ones, tried to eat all the other'n's?)--and there're those racks of pencils with names printed on 'em, only you can never find your name, or if you can, it isn't spelled right...
And there's stuff you never realized people would want 'til you saw it, like specific diapers for swimming toddlers. 'Cause I wouldn't have thought of that, but really, would you want to put a kid in a pool with a non-pool-approved diaper? The thing would go, like, yeasty, wouldn't it? Like it'd get water in it and swell--or else leak, right? So yeah.
And then there's the random stuff--like the spice rack, the one that has like every spice imaginable. Like they count fajita seasoning and wasabi powder as McCormick spices, seriously. And there're two kinds of oregano flakes, Mexican and Mediterranean. Seriously.
Everybody knows that cereal's gotten more random over time, you get like the Timon and Pumbaa Mud'N'Bugs variety, with the candy bugs or whatever crap. ...You know what I miss? Undercover Bears oatmeal. ...Like d'you remember those, where you put the packet in and it looked like regular oatmeal, 'cept for a few hardish clumps here and there? And you put it in the microwave and when it came out, there were gummy bears that'd come out of the clumps, flavored to match the oatmeal, so that you had maple sugar gummy bears, strawberry gummy bears? Those things were the best, and now they're gone, and it disappoints me. I mean, they try to do the second-rate thing, they have a dinosaur version, but the dinosaurs're just sugar candy, they're not gummy. ...Makes me wonder if there was like some health hazard involved, like a choking thing (that's what happened with Nestle Magic, right, Bethie? *g*).
...I mean, c'mon, Dannon Sprink'lins survived.
And I miss Pop Qwiz, that dyed popcorn where you didn't know what color it'd be when you put the bag in, but most of you've heard that treatise out of me by now. *g*
Anyway, yeah, so had a great time looking at the food and stuff, and my dad, who has a knack for picking cashiers in stores that're run by my friends without his realizing that I know them, took us by chance to where Jessica S. was--I know her from church and mostly from Virginia Beach, she was in my group. Her nametag threw me off 'cause it said "Jessi", and I keep wanting to call her Sara for some reason anyway, but we had a really nice conversation and stuff, and I should've invited her to the pizza thing, but I didn't think of it 'til I was gone.
So today I get a car (woo!) and we go out to dinner to celebrate my brother's birthday, which's tomorrow. We'dve gone out tomorrow, 'cept by the time we figured out we wanted to go someplace, I'd already scheduled the pizza thing for Sunday, 'cause Calypso and Erik were all like, how 'bout Sunday?, and I'm all like, okay! without connecting Sunday to the 10th.
Lunchtime now. Be on later tonight, though I may or may not post here.
-Laurel
Went there this morning with my dad, just for the kick, and ended up being completely amused. Like seriously, I used to go shopping with my parents all the time when I was little, and it was cool, you got free chocolate chip cookies and stuff for being under eight years old...and then after a while my parents started going without us most of the time, and that was okay, 'cause it didn't interest me anymore--
--but I don't know, maybe I just like it now. Supermarkets are cool. I don't know, they just are. ::laughs::
'Cause, for one thing, you get all this completely freakified randomness. ...Like buffalo meat. My dad and I found it there in the meat section, $5 a pound, this package shaped a lot like the containers for blocks of mozzarella, or Oscar Mayer bologna or something. Was ground up, rather red, had a little stencily picture of a buffalo on it. ::snorts:: Try putting that in your Hamburger Helper. ...My dad toyed with the idea of getting some, but I was a little wary (even though it turns out they're not endangered, they're grown on farms) and said we should ask Mom and get some next week if she liked the idea. (She didn't. )
And pizza soup. That we did get. I have no idea whether it'll be edible (hm, it'd better be; I'm taking it to work next week...), but we had to try. *g*
And raspberry Fluff, which looked truly disgusting in its shade of reddish-pink, and which I could not imagine tasting good on a sandwich, though I think it'd be decent in hot chocolate. We didn't get any of that, as my dad pointed out that we had a jar of the original-variety Fluff in our cupboard that's gone uneaten for several months.
And then there're things that're just fun, things you used to get when you were a kid--boysenberry syrup (that stuff was so good; it's a pity I'm not into pancakes anymore...) and colored ice cream cones (you remember those things, dyed pink and green and blue, and you never wanted the green ones, tried to eat all the other'n's?)--and there're those racks of pencils with names printed on 'em, only you can never find your name, or if you can, it isn't spelled right...
And there's stuff you never realized people would want 'til you saw it, like specific diapers for swimming toddlers. 'Cause I wouldn't have thought of that, but really, would you want to put a kid in a pool with a non-pool-approved diaper? The thing would go, like, yeasty, wouldn't it? Like it'd get water in it and swell--or else leak, right? So yeah.
And then there's the random stuff--like the spice rack, the one that has like every spice imaginable. Like they count fajita seasoning and wasabi powder as McCormick spices, seriously. And there're two kinds of oregano flakes, Mexican and Mediterranean. Seriously.
Everybody knows that cereal's gotten more random over time, you get like the Timon and Pumbaa Mud'N'Bugs variety, with the candy bugs or whatever crap. ...You know what I miss? Undercover Bears oatmeal. ...Like d'you remember those, where you put the packet in and it looked like regular oatmeal, 'cept for a few hardish clumps here and there? And you put it in the microwave and when it came out, there were gummy bears that'd come out of the clumps, flavored to match the oatmeal, so that you had maple sugar gummy bears, strawberry gummy bears? Those things were the best, and now they're gone, and it disappoints me. I mean, they try to do the second-rate thing, they have a dinosaur version, but the dinosaurs're just sugar candy, they're not gummy. ...Makes me wonder if there was like some health hazard involved, like a choking thing (that's what happened with Nestle Magic, right, Bethie? *g*).
...I mean, c'mon, Dannon Sprink'lins survived.
And I miss Pop Qwiz, that dyed popcorn where you didn't know what color it'd be when you put the bag in, but most of you've heard that treatise out of me by now. *g*
Anyway, yeah, so had a great time looking at the food and stuff, and my dad, who has a knack for picking cashiers in stores that're run by my friends without his realizing that I know them, took us by chance to where Jessica S. was--I know her from church and mostly from Virginia Beach, she was in my group. Her nametag threw me off 'cause it said "Jessi", and I keep wanting to call her Sara for some reason anyway, but we had a really nice conversation and stuff, and I should've invited her to the pizza thing, but I didn't think of it 'til I was gone.
So today I get a car (woo!) and we go out to dinner to celebrate my brother's birthday, which's tomorrow. We'dve gone out tomorrow, 'cept by the time we figured out we wanted to go someplace, I'd already scheduled the pizza thing for Sunday, 'cause Calypso and Erik were all like, how 'bout Sunday?, and I'm all like, okay! without connecting Sunday to the 10th.
Lunchtime now. Be on later tonight, though I may or may not post here.
-Laurel
Saw Anything Goes with Aneya tonight (well, last night, by the time I post this--it'll be after midnight). 'Nanda and Daf showed up, too, so we all got to laugh hysterically at Blake, who used to be so quiet and shy, and who tonight was a complete hyperspastic live wire. With British accent, or attempt thereof, and incredibly funny movements. That song he and Reno did--"Gypsy in Me"--oh gra-cious, if I'd had any clue in tenth grade that this guy that Christy and Megan and I ran laps with in gym class and talked to in study hall, this unassuming kid in gray and navy blue, in T-shirts that only ever said place names ("Baltimore", "Washington, D.C.", etc.) would be pulling Ricky Martin moves and going onstage in smiley-face boxers...oh jeesh.
The others were very good, too--A.J. and Sarah and Jessie, Ms.-W's-daughter-who-played-Reno and whatever random kid played the guy-lead...A.J. was in very good form himself; I'd forgotten how much of a showman he can be. And keeping that accent was impressive; I learned in Arsenic that that's not easy to do. ...Saw my brother's friend Sean there, too--he must've been an ensemble kid, unless volleyball taught him some of the footwork he had going. *g*
Drove home in the dark, which was a little weird, inasmuch as you can't, like, see! I mean, you can, but...yeah. Anyway, got home unscathed, came down and had an online reunion with Aneya and 'Nanda and Daf, Erik and Matt and Glenn.
...AIM is the best ruddy ever. ::laughs::
Is (was) Edge's birthday (lead guitarist for U2), so 'Nanda and Daf and Megs've been spastic all day. Should go see what kind of havoc they've managed to wreak on the blogs. Cheerio!
-Laurel
The others were very good, too--A.J. and Sarah and Jessie, Ms.-W's-daughter-who-played-Reno and whatever random kid played the guy-lead...A.J. was in very good form himself; I'd forgotten how much of a showman he can be. And keeping that accent was impressive; I learned in Arsenic that that's not easy to do. ...Saw my brother's friend Sean there, too--he must've been an ensemble kid, unless volleyball taught him some of the footwork he had going. *g*
Drove home in the dark, which was a little weird, inasmuch as you can't, like, see! I mean, you can, but...yeah. Anyway, got home unscathed, came down and had an online reunion with Aneya and 'Nanda and Daf, Erik and Matt and Glenn.
...AIM is the best ruddy ever. ::laughs::
Is (was) Edge's birthday (lead guitarist for U2), so 'Nanda and Daf and Megs've been spastic all day. Should go see what kind of havoc they've managed to wreak on the blogs. Cheerio!
-Laurel
8.07.2003
Warning: Extremely Long Entry Ahead. May Contain the Following: Excessive Spacing, Tangents, Typographical Errors, Randomness. Contains 100% Daily Value of QPQ-Reading.
How Would YOU Take Over the World?
There. Now that we've gotten that out of the way...
...on to yesterday. *g*
"Jocund", which I looked up tonight, means "sprightly and lighthearted", and "sprightly" in turn is a synonym of "lively", but it doesn't entirely describe my mood, as said mood alternates with "blissful" depending on whether I'm thinking about the soft lovely side of the Newsboys concert or about, say, "Shine" and 'Nanda's and my massive success at DDR. *g*
But to begin at the beginning of my day, we go back to 7:15 or so yesterday morning, when I got up and showered and got into shorts and my Ocean Bowl T-shirt and went to the other-coffee-shop with my mom for breakfast, as opposed to the usual-coffee-shop. Drove us there, as I'm licensed now, and we bought a newspaper (even though it comes to our house--we'd forgotten to bring it, and it was only fifty cents), and my mom had coffee, and I had a chocolate croissant and white hot chocolate, the latter of which I hadn't had before, and which was lovely, even on a summer's morning.
Drove to the doctor's after that, which used the expressway, which I'm not yet good at. Is a bit overwhelming. Almost scraped a passing vehicle. ::turns pink:: But yeah, got us there in our original forms, unscathed, and I proceeded to be checked up, as well as given a tuberculosis test (my college requested it), and I go back tomorrow so they can check out the place where they put the needle in, make sure I didn't react (which would indicate TB exposure).
After that we went back home, hung out 'til noon, whereupon my mom and brother and I went out to the cool-pizza-place I'm going to on Sunday with all my friends. ...Picked this particular pizza place, which's a bit out of everyone's way, because of the creativity of its pies. 'Cause okay, they have your standard cheese, and your four-cheese, and your taco...but then they have mile-high pepperoni, which's seriously shingled in layers so you can't see so much's a trace of cheese except clinging to the sides of the considerable-sized (and reasonably-priced!) slice...and they do Philly-cheesesteak, and chicken parmesan, and--seriously--macaroni and cheese, and bacon cheeseburger (though that was kind of dry when I had it yesterday), and Mediterranean...and just all kinds of massively awesome stuff. And wonderful huge chocolate chip cookies, too.
Our hunger very well satisfied, we went across the way to the nearby mall and bought some sunglasses and a headband; tried unsuccessfully to look for sneakers, which I ended up getting today instead. And then we went home, and I spent the next hour and a half calling people about the pizza run and in talking to Erik, who I believe called me up specifically to show off his newfound Irish-song-composing talents. ::laughs:: That is to say, while bored at Subway, he made up a song, performed in Irish accent, about beating people up. ...And then did it again, on the spot, to the tune of U2's "Beautiful Day". Was brilliant, as you may well believe.
But at four, my mom's friend Sheryl came over (whom I will never learn to call by her first name, as I never could get out of the vibe of being baby-sat by her in elementary school), and we went to pick up Ananda, and went to (Six Flags) Darien Lake for Kingdom Bound, where we planned to see Audio Adrenaline and Newsboys.
Only the concerts didn't start 'til late, and we got there around five. So after a good twenty minutes of looking around for Bunny, who was right there by the gates (only she was sitting, which threw me off completely!--::laughs::), she split off from us, and so did my mom and Sheryl, and 'Nanda and I were on our own for the next forty-five minutes or so.
I don't like roller coasters, but that was okay--we had a better idea.
...Playing DDR. *g*
The machine in the arcade wasn't anywhere near crowded--half the time there wasn't anybody there but us, and I never saw the crowd exceed two other pairs. Having been part of the DDR semi-chaos at Busch Gardens on the VA Beach trip for choir, I appreciated that. So okay, the first time 'Nanda and I tried, we couldn't figure out how to turn two-player on (we're new at DDR Max, okay? *g*), and ended up each playing a one-player round. Went on the "sleighs" after that, which is basically a merry-go-round on caffeine, and which contained a large group of people screaming for the pure unmitigated kick of it.
The pre-concert stuff kind of blurs together--we got lemonades and sucked them down (they were to be our only nourishment of the night), my mom came to our meeting spot with a Larry the Cucumber shirt she'd kindly bought for me, 'Nanda and I rode the swings, which gave me wonderful VA Beach vibes (flying in the dark, lit by the swings, arms out, after-light-rain breeze in our faces--I miss that night...), saw caricatures of Bono and cast of Whose Line. Indeed, lots of things gave me Busch Gardens vibes, which I wasn't averse to.
Just before the Audio Adrenaline concert, 'Nanda wanted to play one more round of DDR, and I was up for that, so we went back...
...watched these two guys stumble their way through a song or two--set on one player, but two up there hitting sets of arrows, one behind them flooring it. Then we got on, in total breach of DDR etiquette, as we'd been standing there first, but we hadn't put up a coin to mark our place, whereas this other guy had. But he let us go. By this time, we'd figured out how to turn it on two-player, which we did, me on light so I knew I could pass, 'Nanda on standard 'cause she's got Stepmania now and therefore feels she can take on the world. ::grins:: Not really, 'Nanda, I know, but my teasing is pure jealousy, you know that.
We played some song with "love" and a heart in the title, and "White Love", and then we went for 'Nanda's favorite, "Dam Dariram", which on my screen was four feet and on 'Nanda's six...
...and we proceeded to kick major DDR butt. ::huge grin:: It's a very good DDR song, long enough to satisfy, challenging yet attainable. We could hear the two guys from before talking behind us, in awe of 'Nanda's footwork, and meanwhile I was doing better than usual (I promise, I do better on four feet than three, it just happens that way and I don't know why!), hitting a few sequences that're tricky for me (in my socks, finally finding and keeping my ideal alignment on the pad; in VA Beach I loved the hard pad, but here it was a little trickier for some reason) and managing to keep very good rhythm the whole way through. The song finally ended, the scores came up...
...and 'Nanda, who'd never passed the song at that level before, had gotten a C...
...and I had gotten my first-ever DDR grade of A, of any song I've ever played on any mix. "Yes!" I cried, throwing my arms in the air...
...as I lowered them, I felt two hands come down congratutorially on my shoulders, obviously guy-hands. Bewildered, I turned around, half-expecting to somehow see my dad or someone (who do I know that's taller than me with guy-hands?)...
...and came face-to-face with one of the guys who'd been admiring 'Nanda's six-foot skill. "You are awesome!" he cried. I was startled and a little disconcerted (when do I ever get anything like that from any guy, much less a total stranger? Was a little creepy, you know?), but I managed a laugh and said, "Not as much as her!", pointing to 'Nanda, and he and his friend congratulated both of us, giving us high-fives, and I got my sneakers back on and 'Nanda picked up her bag and, exchanging final pleasantries with the two boys, we got out of there, grinning like maniacs, elated as all get out, ego-tripped and all.
::laughs:: I wouldn't be surprised if the kid we cut in front of (not one of the two guys talking to us) got on after that and played like a nine-footer and made our admirer-boys wonder why they'd ever been impressed with us. But then, the spiky-haired guy is, well, a guy, so maybe our not-guyness was half the attraction. I wouldn't know.
Anyway, we met back up with Mom and Sheryl and went to the Audio Adrenaline concert...which was, it turned out, in progress. My mom'd thought the concert was at 7, and I'd corrected her to 8 (knowing for certain that Newsboys would be on at nine), but it turned out we were both partly right and both partly wrong: it'd begun at 7:30, and we'd missed twenty minutes. But that was okay; we were there to see Newsboys.
Since the seating was first-come, first-serve, we wandered around 'til we were in decent position, back a ways behind a gate marking off one of the sections. People had to scootch by us a lot to get back to the sections farther up, but that was okay; we were in decent range. ...Not range as good as for Newsboys, but decent. Balloons were being bopped around, and the first one I got had e-mail addresses written all over it: e-mail me after the concert and tell me how you liked it! and several variations thereof, done by several people. Middle-schoolers or junior-highers, or so I'd guess from the handwriting. Anyway, I considered taking down the addresses, but finally decided against it, bopping it farther up instead.
Two college-age guys in front of us were singing along, occasionally glancing at each other and grinning as they did so, obviously psyched to be there, and I wished I could join in with them, since I knew the words, too (or at least all the ones from "Underdog"), but I didn't catch their eye, and they prolly wouldn't have seen it as something as cool as I did, anyway. The music was piercingly loud, at least to my ears--and speaking of which, AA never did play "Pierced", which'd been stuck in my head half the day, but I'm not sure I expected them to (or maybe they did it before we got there?), so that's okay--I noticed that some people'd been smart enough to bring earplugs. Not owning any myself, I contented myself with the idea that it was hard to think of a better cause to blow one's ears out for.
The audience-participation number was fun--which one was it? Oh, it was "Beautiful", a song I knew from WoW 2002--they had five people come up on stage and sing, and that wasn't the fun part (except when it turned out that the random bald middle-aged normal-looking guy was actually fairly good, singing-wise); the fun part was the kids from Canada, who came on with a flag and accidentally held it upside down; and the two kids with the signs about getting onstage with AA (one went something like I'd travel the country to get on stage with Audio Adrenaline; I forget the other).
They'd been doing "Mighty Good Leader" as we came in, and they did "Underdog" (the lead singer reciting the interlude himself, which on the CD is ganked from a prerecorded semi-sermon, a guy that sounds vaguely like Martin Luther King) and "Ocean Floor", "Get Down" and "Hands and Feet" and a few I hadn't heard...after one of them, prolly after "Hands and Feet", this pulsing rock song basically about serving against one's self-imposed odds (An image flashed across my TV screen/Another broken heart comes into view/I saw the pain and I turned my back/Why can't I do the things I want to?/I am willing, yet I'm so afraid...), 'Nanda turned to me, yelling over the crowd.
"Africa?" she asked. ...Africa's our daydream, going and wrapping our hearts around as many starving people as they'll hold, both of us afraid to leave normalcy and parental-approval and friends and loves, but more afraid to stay and become wrapped in an over-calm suburban existence. It's not like we'd necessarily stay there permanently, but we have to go, and we have to be there more than just a week, you know?
"Yeah," I replied.
...AA is very decent, but rather more polished on CD than on stage. They don't have the stage vibe, the presence of Newsboys and their effortless slides between jaunty play and down-to-earth magnitude (which is oxymoronic, but there is such a thing, 'cause they have it), or indeed the presence of almost any band I've ever seen in concert, but I give them credit for their effort, because there was plenty of that. When their concert was over, a guy from Compassion International came out and did kind of a five-minute-telethon thing--CI is a child-sponsoring organization that Newsboys supports pretty enthusiastically (they're the only sponsor organization I've ever seen than encourages visitation of the children, and they're U.S.-government-certified as a legitimate, IRS-acknowledged charity). While this was going on, we made for the T-shirt table, which thank goodness was divided Newsboys and AA, 'cause the Adrenaline side was packed, and the Newsboys side was reasonable, and that's what we wanted anyway, Newsboys T-shirts. Which, though I was by now wearing my new Larry the Cucumber T-shirt, I got. Also green, a "Thrive" shirt--not's cool as the one on their site, which was orange and had different pics and "don't just live...thrive" on it, but still very cool; 'Nanda's was green as well, with what she says is 70s-lettering, and I'll go along with that, since I think of 70s-lettering a little differently but haven't the faintest idea of a better adjective or noun. Hers says "Newsgirl", small, on the front, then "Newsboys", large, on the back. We dropped these off with Mom and Sheryl, who were farther back than us, having found seats...and we decided to see how far up we could get for Newsboys.
How far up ended up being the last row of the VIP area, not with an actual chair, like everyone else, but crouched in one of the wheelchair-accessible areas (not being used; we'dve moved if there was any indication of that, plus there were other areas like that), leaning up against the railing. We hung 'round, getting progressively more excited--especially me, I was pretty spastic--this's my band, not quite to me what U2 is to 'Nanda, and I'd even be hard put to choose between U2 and Newsboys as my personal favorite band, but my band all the same. It seemed unreal that this group that I'd watched in such awe on TV (concert from Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, caught in a hotel in Cooperstown in April of eleventh grade) was going to be here, that Peter Furler's wonderful grin and Australian accent and power and joy would be here on this stage, this amusement park stage...
...and then they were, I was so busy looking around at the crowd that I missed part of Peter Furler's entrance, but there they were--Jody Davis (male-Jody, not female) on bass to the left, Phil Joel on lead guitar, in shades and full long ringlets of blond hair to the right, Peter in the middle...and, behind them, on two separate raised platforms, Jeff Frankenstein on keyboard between Peter and Phil, Duncan Phillips on drums between Jody and Peter. The blaring speakers had sent the chords to "Shine" up and down the venue, the chords everybody knows, maybe the first Newsboys song I ever knew (though it was crossed with dc Talk's "Jesus Freak" back then, the first all-Newsboys song I ever heard was "Entertaining Angels")...and we sang. "Dull is dead..."
It was loud enough that you could barely hear yourself, but we were halfway through the first chorus when I started listening to my own singing and noticed that I'd gone into the harmony without even realizing it--something I kept catching myself doing all night, unintentionally at first, then just because it was fun.
"Shine" ended and "Who?" began, my mind recognizing the opening several measures before it registered the title, so that I'd cried "Yes!" excitedly without remembering exactly what I was crying it about...
...then came "Million Pieces (Kissin' Your Cares Goodbye)", complete with music video on the side-screens...Bethie loves that one, and my mom, too.
After that was "Cornelius", which's fun and almost silly, kid-catchy enough that if you know the words, you barely manage to stop yourself from making up motions to it, you're a little self-conscious, singing it, but you're grinning in spite of yourself...
...and the order blurs for the rest of it, but I know what songs they did. They did "Joy", and the last few songs of the night were so euphoric that I've almost forgotten how great this one was, but 'Nanda remembered...
...softer songs were mixed in between, very short--thirty-second breaths of straight worship music, as opposed to the rock of their other material--none of them sung by Peter Furler, but one by Phil Joel (who has a CD of his own, so I knew he was good) and one by Jody Davis (who I didn't know could sing so well--he, like all of them are, is good!), and I think one by Jeff Frankenstein, too.
They did "He Reigns", which I'd never heard but wished I had, 'cause it's very good, kind of an unofficial theme for Compassion International. We picked the chorus up quickly and sang along--it made me wish, for a minute, that I'd gotten that T-shirt, the "He Reigns" one with the flags all over it, but now I'm glad I stuck to the one I have; I just like it.
They did "Entertaining Angels", which takes me back to the summer after eighth grade and the first CD (as opposed to cassette tape) I'd ever had, the first real look at the whole Christian-music spectrum, and not just Jars of Clay--balmy nights with my fan on, amazed that I'd managed to go so long without knowing about this whole music vein I'd left untapped; takes me back to prayer breakfasts at church and realizing that when you listened to the song long enough, you couldn't sing it in anything but your own mediocre attempt at an Australian accent (go 'head, I dare you, listen to the thing for a week and more--you will, at some point, find yourself singing "enteh-tynin' eye'n-jels" without even knowing it)...
I knew "Breakfast" must be coming at one point, just by the way Peter looked out and grinned--but there was a message-part first, he talked for a while, and that part was cool enough--I know what 'Nanda's saying, about some people cheering at every mention of Jesus, her wondering about the sincerity. ...Seeing some of that, and either experiencing a little of that for myself or knowing people who have--my youth group two years at Excel, Megan and Sarah talking about their church things in Bible study--we've talked about that, too, I think. And sometimes it prolly is half an act, done because that's what's expected. Sometimes it's really, truly meant, and it's not commonplace, but it's what happens--sometimes you just feel like you ought to make the noise, and sometimes it's because people're so glad to hear something spoken, maybe to hear truth over a microphone when in their lives they feel like it has to be whispered half-apologetically...and sometimes, like me, like 'Nanda, you don't get that vibe at all, you just listen and feel quiet and content and decide consciously that you won't make the noise.
So that was done, and they did "Breakfast", which people'd been gearing up for all night, people even at the AA concert with boxes of cereal in reference. Quick plot-summary: Tribute to leader of a prayer breakfast group (real or imaginary? I don't know) that's died unexpectedly; light-side look at death ("Breakfast Clubbers, drop your hankies/Though to some our friend was odd/That day he bought those pine pajamas/His check was good with God"), with various breakfast references thrown in ("Ah, rise up, Fruit Loop-lovers, sing out Sweet'n'Low/With spoons held high, we bid our brother 'Cheerio'..."). Is a very fun song, lyrics really very fun and clever. They egged us on to be louder, and we were...my tonsils, lymph nodes were begging for mercy at this point, but it was too fun not to sing...
...and that was the "end", but we cheered loud and long enough and they came back...
...and I thought for sure they'd do "Thrive", it's so popular, but instead they went two tracks past that, to "It is You"--
--which was just incredible. I don't have the words. But it topped prolly any concert experience I've ever had, the concert as a whole. Was wonderful.
And then it was over, we went to find Mom and Sheryl, we never did find Bunny, hadn't seen her for hours, but she'd been with Anne Marie, so that was okay, we knew that's where she was and would be, and she didn't need a ride with us anyway.
...I'm surprised at all the songs they didn't play. I mean, granted, was an hour concert, not full-length, but all the same, "Who?" was an interesting choice, considering all the ones more popular--"Step Up to the Microphone" and "Take Me To Your Leader" and "WooHoo", just to name a few--and "Thrive", especially "Thrive", like I said, 'cause it's newer than the others I was mentioning, and already so classic. And I'dve liked to have heard "Live in Stereo" or "The Tide" or "Cup O'Tea", 'cause I like those, but I wasn't expecting them.
Bunch of people as we came out, we were starving and parched, but there was no food in sight; was 9:45 or so and everything was closed. Had Darien Lake left open so much's a couple of hot dog stands, or a walking popcorn vendor, they could've made a small fortune; I hadn't eaten for going on ten hours, neither had Ananda, and I know there must've been other hungry people there...
...we passed by a van, door open, blaring Newsboys's "Love Liberty Disco", another song they hadn't played...
...we got out of there relatively quickly, having parked by the main gates, and got home around 10:30ish, no decent dinner food in the house, but I went for rice pudding and toast, scribbled some notes...
...and slept.
See 'Nanda's blog for all I missed, the balloon-playing with the little boy and anything else I'm forgetting.
::exhales, smiles::
Was a beautiful night.
-Laurel
How Would YOU Take Over the World?
There. Now that we've gotten that out of the way...
...on to yesterday. *g*
"Jocund", which I looked up tonight, means "sprightly and lighthearted", and "sprightly" in turn is a synonym of "lively", but it doesn't entirely describe my mood, as said mood alternates with "blissful" depending on whether I'm thinking about the soft lovely side of the Newsboys concert or about, say, "Shine" and 'Nanda's and my massive success at DDR. *g*
But to begin at the beginning of my day, we go back to 7:15 or so yesterday morning, when I got up and showered and got into shorts and my Ocean Bowl T-shirt and went to the other-coffee-shop with my mom for breakfast, as opposed to the usual-coffee-shop. Drove us there, as I'm licensed now, and we bought a newspaper (even though it comes to our house--we'd forgotten to bring it, and it was only fifty cents), and my mom had coffee, and I had a chocolate croissant and white hot chocolate, the latter of which I hadn't had before, and which was lovely, even on a summer's morning.
Drove to the doctor's after that, which used the expressway, which I'm not yet good at. Is a bit overwhelming. Almost scraped a passing vehicle. ::turns pink:: But yeah, got us there in our original forms, unscathed, and I proceeded to be checked up, as well as given a tuberculosis test (my college requested it), and I go back tomorrow so they can check out the place where they put the needle in, make sure I didn't react (which would indicate TB exposure).
After that we went back home, hung out 'til noon, whereupon my mom and brother and I went out to the cool-pizza-place I'm going to on Sunday with all my friends. ...Picked this particular pizza place, which's a bit out of everyone's way, because of the creativity of its pies. 'Cause okay, they have your standard cheese, and your four-cheese, and your taco...but then they have mile-high pepperoni, which's seriously shingled in layers so you can't see so much's a trace of cheese except clinging to the sides of the considerable-sized (and reasonably-priced!) slice...and they do Philly-cheesesteak, and chicken parmesan, and--seriously--macaroni and cheese, and bacon cheeseburger (though that was kind of dry when I had it yesterday), and Mediterranean...and just all kinds of massively awesome stuff. And wonderful huge chocolate chip cookies, too.
Our hunger very well satisfied, we went across the way to the nearby mall and bought some sunglasses and a headband; tried unsuccessfully to look for sneakers, which I ended up getting today instead. And then we went home, and I spent the next hour and a half calling people about the pizza run and in talking to Erik, who I believe called me up specifically to show off his newfound Irish-song-composing talents. ::laughs:: That is to say, while bored at Subway, he made up a song, performed in Irish accent, about beating people up. ...And then did it again, on the spot, to the tune of U2's "Beautiful Day". Was brilliant, as you may well believe.
But at four, my mom's friend Sheryl came over (whom I will never learn to call by her first name, as I never could get out of the vibe of being baby-sat by her in elementary school), and we went to pick up Ananda, and went to (Six Flags) Darien Lake for Kingdom Bound, where we planned to see Audio Adrenaline and Newsboys.
Only the concerts didn't start 'til late, and we got there around five. So after a good twenty minutes of looking around for Bunny, who was right there by the gates (only she was sitting, which threw me off completely!--::laughs::), she split off from us, and so did my mom and Sheryl, and 'Nanda and I were on our own for the next forty-five minutes or so.
I don't like roller coasters, but that was okay--we had a better idea.
...Playing DDR. *g*
The machine in the arcade wasn't anywhere near crowded--half the time there wasn't anybody there but us, and I never saw the crowd exceed two other pairs. Having been part of the DDR semi-chaos at Busch Gardens on the VA Beach trip for choir, I appreciated that. So okay, the first time 'Nanda and I tried, we couldn't figure out how to turn two-player on (we're new at DDR Max, okay? *g*), and ended up each playing a one-player round. Went on the "sleighs" after that, which is basically a merry-go-round on caffeine, and which contained a large group of people screaming for the pure unmitigated kick of it.
The pre-concert stuff kind of blurs together--we got lemonades and sucked them down (they were to be our only nourishment of the night), my mom came to our meeting spot with a Larry the Cucumber shirt she'd kindly bought for me, 'Nanda and I rode the swings, which gave me wonderful VA Beach vibes (flying in the dark, lit by the swings, arms out, after-light-rain breeze in our faces--I miss that night...), saw caricatures of Bono and cast of Whose Line. Indeed, lots of things gave me Busch Gardens vibes, which I wasn't averse to.
Just before the Audio Adrenaline concert, 'Nanda wanted to play one more round of DDR, and I was up for that, so we went back...
...watched these two guys stumble their way through a song or two--set on one player, but two up there hitting sets of arrows, one behind them flooring it. Then we got on, in total breach of DDR etiquette, as we'd been standing there first, but we hadn't put up a coin to mark our place, whereas this other guy had. But he let us go. By this time, we'd figured out how to turn it on two-player, which we did, me on light so I knew I could pass, 'Nanda on standard 'cause she's got Stepmania now and therefore feels she can take on the world. ::grins:: Not really, 'Nanda, I know, but my teasing is pure jealousy, you know that.
We played some song with "love" and a heart in the title, and "White Love", and then we went for 'Nanda's favorite, "Dam Dariram", which on my screen was four feet and on 'Nanda's six...
...and we proceeded to kick major DDR butt. ::huge grin:: It's a very good DDR song, long enough to satisfy, challenging yet attainable. We could hear the two guys from before talking behind us, in awe of 'Nanda's footwork, and meanwhile I was doing better than usual (I promise, I do better on four feet than three, it just happens that way and I don't know why!), hitting a few sequences that're tricky for me (in my socks, finally finding and keeping my ideal alignment on the pad; in VA Beach I loved the hard pad, but here it was a little trickier for some reason) and managing to keep very good rhythm the whole way through. The song finally ended, the scores came up...
...and 'Nanda, who'd never passed the song at that level before, had gotten a C...
...and I had gotten my first-ever DDR grade of A, of any song I've ever played on any mix. "Yes!" I cried, throwing my arms in the air...
...as I lowered them, I felt two hands come down congratutorially on my shoulders, obviously guy-hands. Bewildered, I turned around, half-expecting to somehow see my dad or someone (who do I know that's taller than me with guy-hands?)...
...and came face-to-face with one of the guys who'd been admiring 'Nanda's six-foot skill. "You are awesome!" he cried. I was startled and a little disconcerted (when do I ever get anything like that from any guy, much less a total stranger? Was a little creepy, you know?), but I managed a laugh and said, "Not as much as her!", pointing to 'Nanda, and he and his friend congratulated both of us, giving us high-fives, and I got my sneakers back on and 'Nanda picked up her bag and, exchanging final pleasantries with the two boys, we got out of there, grinning like maniacs, elated as all get out, ego-tripped and all.
::laughs:: I wouldn't be surprised if the kid we cut in front of (not one of the two guys talking to us) got on after that and played like a nine-footer and made our admirer-boys wonder why they'd ever been impressed with us. But then, the spiky-haired guy is, well, a guy, so maybe our not-guyness was half the attraction. I wouldn't know.
Anyway, we met back up with Mom and Sheryl and went to the Audio Adrenaline concert...which was, it turned out, in progress. My mom'd thought the concert was at 7, and I'd corrected her to 8 (knowing for certain that Newsboys would be on at nine), but it turned out we were both partly right and both partly wrong: it'd begun at 7:30, and we'd missed twenty minutes. But that was okay; we were there to see Newsboys.
Since the seating was first-come, first-serve, we wandered around 'til we were in decent position, back a ways behind a gate marking off one of the sections. People had to scootch by us a lot to get back to the sections farther up, but that was okay; we were in decent range. ...Not range as good as for Newsboys, but decent. Balloons were being bopped around, and the first one I got had e-mail addresses written all over it: e-mail me after the concert and tell me how you liked it! and several variations thereof, done by several people. Middle-schoolers or junior-highers, or so I'd guess from the handwriting. Anyway, I considered taking down the addresses, but finally decided against it, bopping it farther up instead.
Two college-age guys in front of us were singing along, occasionally glancing at each other and grinning as they did so, obviously psyched to be there, and I wished I could join in with them, since I knew the words, too (or at least all the ones from "Underdog"), but I didn't catch their eye, and they prolly wouldn't have seen it as something as cool as I did, anyway. The music was piercingly loud, at least to my ears--and speaking of which, AA never did play "Pierced", which'd been stuck in my head half the day, but I'm not sure I expected them to (or maybe they did it before we got there?), so that's okay--I noticed that some people'd been smart enough to bring earplugs. Not owning any myself, I contented myself with the idea that it was hard to think of a better cause to blow one's ears out for.
The audience-participation number was fun--which one was it? Oh, it was "Beautiful", a song I knew from WoW 2002--they had five people come up on stage and sing, and that wasn't the fun part (except when it turned out that the random bald middle-aged normal-looking guy was actually fairly good, singing-wise); the fun part was the kids from Canada, who came on with a flag and accidentally held it upside down; and the two kids with the signs about getting onstage with AA (one went something like I'd travel the country to get on stage with Audio Adrenaline; I forget the other).
They'd been doing "Mighty Good Leader" as we came in, and they did "Underdog" (the lead singer reciting the interlude himself, which on the CD is ganked from a prerecorded semi-sermon, a guy that sounds vaguely like Martin Luther King) and "Ocean Floor", "Get Down" and "Hands and Feet" and a few I hadn't heard...after one of them, prolly after "Hands and Feet", this pulsing rock song basically about serving against one's self-imposed odds (An image flashed across my TV screen/Another broken heart comes into view/I saw the pain and I turned my back/Why can't I do the things I want to?/I am willing, yet I'm so afraid...), 'Nanda turned to me, yelling over the crowd.
"Africa?" she asked. ...Africa's our daydream, going and wrapping our hearts around as many starving people as they'll hold, both of us afraid to leave normalcy and parental-approval and friends and loves, but more afraid to stay and become wrapped in an over-calm suburban existence. It's not like we'd necessarily stay there permanently, but we have to go, and we have to be there more than just a week, you know?
"Yeah," I replied.
...AA is very decent, but rather more polished on CD than on stage. They don't have the stage vibe, the presence of Newsboys and their effortless slides between jaunty play and down-to-earth magnitude (which is oxymoronic, but there is such a thing, 'cause they have it), or indeed the presence of almost any band I've ever seen in concert, but I give them credit for their effort, because there was plenty of that. When their concert was over, a guy from Compassion International came out and did kind of a five-minute-telethon thing--CI is a child-sponsoring organization that Newsboys supports pretty enthusiastically (they're the only sponsor organization I've ever seen than encourages visitation of the children, and they're U.S.-government-certified as a legitimate, IRS-acknowledged charity). While this was going on, we made for the T-shirt table, which thank goodness was divided Newsboys and AA, 'cause the Adrenaline side was packed, and the Newsboys side was reasonable, and that's what we wanted anyway, Newsboys T-shirts. Which, though I was by now wearing my new Larry the Cucumber T-shirt, I got. Also green, a "Thrive" shirt--not's cool as the one on their site, which was orange and had different pics and "don't just live...thrive" on it, but still very cool; 'Nanda's was green as well, with what she says is 70s-lettering, and I'll go along with that, since I think of 70s-lettering a little differently but haven't the faintest idea of a better adjective or noun. Hers says "Newsgirl", small, on the front, then "Newsboys", large, on the back. We dropped these off with Mom and Sheryl, who were farther back than us, having found seats...and we decided to see how far up we could get for Newsboys.
How far up ended up being the last row of the VIP area, not with an actual chair, like everyone else, but crouched in one of the wheelchair-accessible areas (not being used; we'dve moved if there was any indication of that, plus there were other areas like that), leaning up against the railing. We hung 'round, getting progressively more excited--especially me, I was pretty spastic--this's my band, not quite to me what U2 is to 'Nanda, and I'd even be hard put to choose between U2 and Newsboys as my personal favorite band, but my band all the same. It seemed unreal that this group that I'd watched in such awe on TV (concert from Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, caught in a hotel in Cooperstown in April of eleventh grade) was going to be here, that Peter Furler's wonderful grin and Australian accent and power and joy would be here on this stage, this amusement park stage...
...and then they were, I was so busy looking around at the crowd that I missed part of Peter Furler's entrance, but there they were--Jody Davis (male-Jody, not female) on bass to the left, Phil Joel on lead guitar, in shades and full long ringlets of blond hair to the right, Peter in the middle...and, behind them, on two separate raised platforms, Jeff Frankenstein on keyboard between Peter and Phil, Duncan Phillips on drums between Jody and Peter. The blaring speakers had sent the chords to "Shine" up and down the venue, the chords everybody knows, maybe the first Newsboys song I ever knew (though it was crossed with dc Talk's "Jesus Freak" back then, the first all-Newsboys song I ever heard was "Entertaining Angels")...and we sang. "Dull is dead..."
It was loud enough that you could barely hear yourself, but we were halfway through the first chorus when I started listening to my own singing and noticed that I'd gone into the harmony without even realizing it--something I kept catching myself doing all night, unintentionally at first, then just because it was fun.
"Shine" ended and "Who?" began, my mind recognizing the opening several measures before it registered the title, so that I'd cried "Yes!" excitedly without remembering exactly what I was crying it about...
...then came "Million Pieces (Kissin' Your Cares Goodbye)", complete with music video on the side-screens...Bethie loves that one, and my mom, too.
After that was "Cornelius", which's fun and almost silly, kid-catchy enough that if you know the words, you barely manage to stop yourself from making up motions to it, you're a little self-conscious, singing it, but you're grinning in spite of yourself...
...and the order blurs for the rest of it, but I know what songs they did. They did "Joy", and the last few songs of the night were so euphoric that I've almost forgotten how great this one was, but 'Nanda remembered...
...softer songs were mixed in between, very short--thirty-second breaths of straight worship music, as opposed to the rock of their other material--none of them sung by Peter Furler, but one by Phil Joel (who has a CD of his own, so I knew he was good) and one by Jody Davis (who I didn't know could sing so well--he, like all of them are, is good!), and I think one by Jeff Frankenstein, too.
They did "He Reigns", which I'd never heard but wished I had, 'cause it's very good, kind of an unofficial theme for Compassion International. We picked the chorus up quickly and sang along--it made me wish, for a minute, that I'd gotten that T-shirt, the "He Reigns" one with the flags all over it, but now I'm glad I stuck to the one I have; I just like it.
They did "Entertaining Angels", which takes me back to the summer after eighth grade and the first CD (as opposed to cassette tape) I'd ever had, the first real look at the whole Christian-music spectrum, and not just Jars of Clay--balmy nights with my fan on, amazed that I'd managed to go so long without knowing about this whole music vein I'd left untapped; takes me back to prayer breakfasts at church and realizing that when you listened to the song long enough, you couldn't sing it in anything but your own mediocre attempt at an Australian accent (go 'head, I dare you, listen to the thing for a week and more--you will, at some point, find yourself singing "enteh-tynin' eye'n-jels" without even knowing it)...
I knew "Breakfast" must be coming at one point, just by the way Peter looked out and grinned--but there was a message-part first, he talked for a while, and that part was cool enough--I know what 'Nanda's saying, about some people cheering at every mention of Jesus, her wondering about the sincerity. ...Seeing some of that, and either experiencing a little of that for myself or knowing people who have--my youth group two years at Excel, Megan and Sarah talking about their church things in Bible study--we've talked about that, too, I think. And sometimes it prolly is half an act, done because that's what's expected. Sometimes it's really, truly meant, and it's not commonplace, but it's what happens--sometimes you just feel like you ought to make the noise, and sometimes it's because people're so glad to hear something spoken, maybe to hear truth over a microphone when in their lives they feel like it has to be whispered half-apologetically...and sometimes, like me, like 'Nanda, you don't get that vibe at all, you just listen and feel quiet and content and decide consciously that you won't make the noise.
So that was done, and they did "Breakfast", which people'd been gearing up for all night, people even at the AA concert with boxes of cereal in reference. Quick plot-summary: Tribute to leader of a prayer breakfast group (real or imaginary? I don't know) that's died unexpectedly; light-side look at death ("Breakfast Clubbers, drop your hankies/Though to some our friend was odd/That day he bought those pine pajamas/His check was good with God"), with various breakfast references thrown in ("Ah, rise up, Fruit Loop-lovers, sing out Sweet'n'Low/With spoons held high, we bid our brother 'Cheerio'..."). Is a very fun song, lyrics really very fun and clever. They egged us on to be louder, and we were...my tonsils, lymph nodes were begging for mercy at this point, but it was too fun not to sing...
...and that was the "end", but we cheered loud and long enough and they came back...
...and I thought for sure they'd do "Thrive", it's so popular, but instead they went two tracks past that, to "It is You"--
--which was just incredible. I don't have the words. But it topped prolly any concert experience I've ever had, the concert as a whole. Was wonderful.
And then it was over, we went to find Mom and Sheryl, we never did find Bunny, hadn't seen her for hours, but she'd been with Anne Marie, so that was okay, we knew that's where she was and would be, and she didn't need a ride with us anyway.
...I'm surprised at all the songs they didn't play. I mean, granted, was an hour concert, not full-length, but all the same, "Who?" was an interesting choice, considering all the ones more popular--"Step Up to the Microphone" and "Take Me To Your Leader" and "WooHoo", just to name a few--and "Thrive", especially "Thrive", like I said, 'cause it's newer than the others I was mentioning, and already so classic. And I'dve liked to have heard "Live in Stereo" or "The Tide" or "Cup O'Tea", 'cause I like those, but I wasn't expecting them.
Bunch of people as we came out, we were starving and parched, but there was no food in sight; was 9:45 or so and everything was closed. Had Darien Lake left open so much's a couple of hot dog stands, or a walking popcorn vendor, they could've made a small fortune; I hadn't eaten for going on ten hours, neither had Ananda, and I know there must've been other hungry people there...
...we passed by a van, door open, blaring Newsboys's "Love Liberty Disco", another song they hadn't played...
...we got out of there relatively quickly, having parked by the main gates, and got home around 10:30ish, no decent dinner food in the house, but I went for rice pudding and toast, scribbled some notes...
...and slept.
See 'Nanda's blog for all I missed, the balloon-playing with the little boy and anything else I'm forgetting.
::exhales, smiles::
Was a beautiful night.
-Laurel
8.05.2003
As i-mood currently indicates, am feeling social, with concert tomorrow, play to see on Friday, and massive pizza outing in the works. ::grins:: Ah, the joys of having a license, and having friends with licenses, and having a few friends without so we can drive them around.
Not that I've driven anywhere by myself yet. ::laughs::
-Laurel
Not that I've driven anywhere by myself yet. ::laughs::
-Laurel
So yeah, 10:00 was my test-time this morning. Got to the village at, seriously, like 9:30, so I had plenty of time to practice. Did a couple decent parallel parks, then Dad and I went to the test site and took a bit of a walk, then we came back and sat in the car with the radio on.
Test-lady...yeah. Was interesting. I haven't the energy at the moment to recount the test blow by blow, but I'll do what I can.
The DMV lady (lipstick applied overthickly, voice rather like Roseanne) came to us and didn't take it too kindly when my dad happened to mention, by way of explaining why we hadn't been pulled up all the way, that he'd thought the boy in front of us was about to go.
That boy doesn't have a licensed driver with him. I don't have time to wait for these people, she fired off. Which, okay, sounds almost reasonable until you realize that the parent in question was stinking ten feet away, just sitting there on the step having coffee. He wasn't in the car, so she didn't have the time to wait fifteen seconds for him to get in--choosing instead to make the boy pull up, make us pull up, walk over to our car, and explain the situation to us (forty-five seconds, my guess).
So my dad says to me, your papers're in the back.
She's gonna need them, the lady snaps back at him. My dad apologized, handed me the papers, indicated the window-roll-up button to the lady (as it was down all the way), and made tracks, leaving me with Disgruntled Civil Servant, who proceeded to give terse directions that I did my best to follow.
...The analogy I make is that of trying out for Broadway. Here's somebody you've never seen before, who's never taught you anything, who may well have a style in mind that you weren't taught by, and they're the one who decides whether you pass or fail. They look you over rather skeptically (you wanna be a *what*? Listen, kid, don't you think you should stick to the chorus for a while?), and then they put you through your paces.
...In NYC we talked to a guy trying out for Broadway, whose director listened to him sing this song with a really high range, then said, okay, do it a key higher. He did so. Higher, the guy said.
They say they'll never make you parallel park between two vehicles, right? I distinctly remember hearing that in driver's ed (though, now that I'm discussing it with Aneya, I guess every once in a while they do). So when the lady told me to parallel park behind this red truck--which had behind it a green VW-Bug-type vehicle--I asked, that one?, pointing to a red vehicle farther up.
The red *truck*, she snapped, her tone carrying a clear implication of blind and deaf, or just dumb?
Bear in mind that I have not actually parallel-parked between two vehicles. I've done it between garbage cans, back in eleventh grade, in the dead of winter, but never two vehicles. So even though she then had to snap at me to straighten it out, I actually did it, and wasn't too bad, if I may say so.
Got ten points lopped off altogether (apparently you're supposed to signal coming out of a K-turn, one of those things I always do in practice, but managed not to do in reality; I also messed something up a bit getting to the right of a truck). That wasn't so bad. What was bad was being crooked when I tried to pull up where she said, between this car and this stop sign, and her saying, that's too sad.
::snorts:: Servant of the people, my whatever-and-ever. But she passed me, though I think she wouldn'tve given a choice, and here I am.
Went to Wendy's for lunch with my dad and brother and ran into--talk about creepy experiences--my driver's ed teacher from eleventh grade, in with her summer group (one of which I knew, was Christa). We didn't recognize each other at first. I was glad she didn't ask me when I'd gotten my license, inasmuch as, in her eyes, I should have had it a year and a half ago, and had only had it for about two hours.
Got home and talked to some people online and on the phone, then went to get a meningitis shot. Which was massively easy--definitely don't fear that one, all you who'll get it. ...Saw Bequi there; we got immunized by the same doctor. I liked the doctor; I wasn't sure if county-employed health people would be especially good or especially impatient, but this one was very cool, a little in manner like Beverly Crusher. ::laughs:: Or maybe that's wishful parallel, but she wasn't like Pulaski, anyway.
Heard some Avril Lavigne on the way, 'cause my dad just bought her CD. I was much more impressed than I expected to be, considering her genre. ...She pays a lot more attention to lyrics and varied themes than many like her, which's usually good for getting my musical respect.
Got a new printer, was helped by a very nice employee-guy, so yeah, people aren't bad or anything. *g*
Got home, had dinner, went to sleep, got up at nine or so, and have been online ever since. Work tomorrow, as well as haircut, so yeah, perhaps I should end this here. ::laughs::
But much stress from yesterday (not just car-related) has been reduced, so yeah. It may not be a Week of Insanity after all.
-Laurel
Test-lady...yeah. Was interesting. I haven't the energy at the moment to recount the test blow by blow, but I'll do what I can.
The DMV lady (lipstick applied overthickly, voice rather like Roseanne) came to us and didn't take it too kindly when my dad happened to mention, by way of explaining why we hadn't been pulled up all the way, that he'd thought the boy in front of us was about to go.
That boy doesn't have a licensed driver with him. I don't have time to wait for these people, she fired off. Which, okay, sounds almost reasonable until you realize that the parent in question was stinking ten feet away, just sitting there on the step having coffee. He wasn't in the car, so she didn't have the time to wait fifteen seconds for him to get in--choosing instead to make the boy pull up, make us pull up, walk over to our car, and explain the situation to us (forty-five seconds, my guess).
So my dad says to me, your papers're in the back.
She's gonna need them, the lady snaps back at him. My dad apologized, handed me the papers, indicated the window-roll-up button to the lady (as it was down all the way), and made tracks, leaving me with Disgruntled Civil Servant, who proceeded to give terse directions that I did my best to follow.
...The analogy I make is that of trying out for Broadway. Here's somebody you've never seen before, who's never taught you anything, who may well have a style in mind that you weren't taught by, and they're the one who decides whether you pass or fail. They look you over rather skeptically (you wanna be a *what*? Listen, kid, don't you think you should stick to the chorus for a while?), and then they put you through your paces.
...In NYC we talked to a guy trying out for Broadway, whose director listened to him sing this song with a really high range, then said, okay, do it a key higher. He did so. Higher, the guy said.
They say they'll never make you parallel park between two vehicles, right? I distinctly remember hearing that in driver's ed (though, now that I'm discussing it with Aneya, I guess every once in a while they do). So when the lady told me to parallel park behind this red truck--which had behind it a green VW-Bug-type vehicle--I asked, that one?, pointing to a red vehicle farther up.
The red *truck*, she snapped, her tone carrying a clear implication of blind and deaf, or just dumb?
Bear in mind that I have not actually parallel-parked between two vehicles. I've done it between garbage cans, back in eleventh grade, in the dead of winter, but never two vehicles. So even though she then had to snap at me to straighten it out, I actually did it, and wasn't too bad, if I may say so.
Got ten points lopped off altogether (apparently you're supposed to signal coming out of a K-turn, one of those things I always do in practice, but managed not to do in reality; I also messed something up a bit getting to the right of a truck). That wasn't so bad. What was bad was being crooked when I tried to pull up where she said, between this car and this stop sign, and her saying, that's too sad.
::snorts:: Servant of the people, my whatever-and-ever. But she passed me, though I think she wouldn'tve given a choice, and here I am.
Went to Wendy's for lunch with my dad and brother and ran into--talk about creepy experiences--my driver's ed teacher from eleventh grade, in with her summer group (one of which I knew, was Christa). We didn't recognize each other at first. I was glad she didn't ask me when I'd gotten my license, inasmuch as, in her eyes, I should have had it a year and a half ago, and had only had it for about two hours.
Got home and talked to some people online and on the phone, then went to get a meningitis shot. Which was massively easy--definitely don't fear that one, all you who'll get it. ...Saw Bequi there; we got immunized by the same doctor. I liked the doctor; I wasn't sure if county-employed health people would be especially good or especially impatient, but this one was very cool, a little in manner like Beverly Crusher. ::laughs:: Or maybe that's wishful parallel, but she wasn't like Pulaski, anyway.
Heard some Avril Lavigne on the way, 'cause my dad just bought her CD. I was much more impressed than I expected to be, considering her genre. ...She pays a lot more attention to lyrics and varied themes than many like her, which's usually good for getting my musical respect.
Got a new printer, was helped by a very nice employee-guy, so yeah, people aren't bad or anything. *g*
Got home, had dinner, went to sleep, got up at nine or so, and have been online ever since. Work tomorrow, as well as haircut, so yeah, perhaps I should end this here. ::laughs::
But much stress from yesterday (not just car-related) has been reduced, so yeah. It may not be a Week of Insanity after all.
-Laurel